Banded hare-wallaby | |
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Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Infraclass: | Marsupialia |
Order: | Diprotodontia |
Family: | Macropodidae |
Subfamily: | Lagostrophinae |
Genus: | Lagostrophus Thomas, 1887 [3] |
Species: | L. fasciatus |
Binomial name | |
Lagostrophus fasciatus | |
Subspecies | |
Banded hare-wallaby range (red — native, pink — reintroduced) |
The banded hare-wallaby, mernine, or munning (Lagostrophus fasciatus) is a marsupial currently found on the islands of Bernier and Dorre off western Australia. Reintroduced populations have recently been established on islands and fenced mainland sites, including Faure Island [4] and Wadderin Sanctuary near Narembeen in the central wheatbelt.[ citation needed ]
The description of the species was published in the 1807 report of a French expedition to Australia. The authors, zoologist François Péron and illustrator Charles Lesueur, described a specimen collected at Bernier Island during their visit to the region in 1801, naming the new species as Kangurus fasciatus. [5]
Evidence suggested that the mernine was the only living member of the sthenurine subfamily, [6] and a recent osteology-based phylogeny of macropodids found that the banded hare-wallaby was indeed a bastion of an ancient lineage, agreeing with other (molecular) appraisals of the evolutionary history of L. fasciatus. [7] However, the authors' analysis did not support the placement of the mernine within Sthenurinae, but suggest it belongs to a plesiomorphic clade which branched off from other macropodids in the early Miocene and founded the new subfamily Lagostrophinae. [7] Recent analysis of mtDNA extracted from fossils of the sthenurine Simosthenurus supports this conclusion. [8] This new subfamily includes the banded hare-wallaby and the fossil genus Troposodon . [7]
The average banded hare-wallaby weighs 1.7 kg (3.7 lb); females weigh more than the males. It measures about 800 mm (31 in) from the head to the end of the tail, with the tail almost the same length (averaging 375 mm) as the body. It has a short nose; its long, grey fur is speckled with yellow and silver and fades into a light grey on the underbelly. No colour variation is seen on the face or head, and its colouring is solid grey. Dark, horizontal stripes of fur start at the middle of the back and stop at the base of the tail.
The banded hare-wallaby is nocturnal and tends to live in groups at nesting sites; this species is quite social. Nesting occurs in thickets under very dense brush. This macropod prefers to live in Acacia ligulata scrub. Males are extremely aggressive.
The species was once found on the mainland, in the southwest of Western Australia and South Australia, but its only surviving natural populations are now restricted to Bernier Island and Dorre Island off Western Australia. [9] The species has been successfully reintroduced to Faure Island [4] and Dirk Hartog Island [10] in Shark Bay, and to a large fenced reserve at Mount Gibson Sanctuary [11] in Western Australia.
Although the banded hare-wallaby was once found across the south-western portion of Australia, it is believed to have been extinct on the mainland since 1963, and the last recorded evidence of the banded hare-wallaby on the Australian mainland was in 1906. The devastation of the species possibly can be attributed to the loss of habitat to the clearing of vegetation, the loss of food (due to competition with other animals), and predators.
Two subspecies are recognized: [9] L. f. fasciatus and L. f. baudinettei.
This diprotodontian is a vegetarian and receives most of its water from food. It prefers to eat various grasses, fruit, and other vegetation. Male aggression is usually brought out in competition for food with other males and is very rarely expressed toward females.
Mating season starts in December and ends in September. The banded hare-wallaby reaches maturity at one year of age, breeding usually starts in the second year. Gestation appears to last several months and mothers generally raise one young each year, although females may produce two young per year. Young remain in their mother's pouch for six months and continue to be weaned for another three months. In situations where a mother's young dies, some mothers have an extra embryo to possibly rear another.
A wallaby is a small or middle-sized macropod native to Australia and New Guinea, with introduced populations in New Zealand, Hawaii, the United Kingdom and other countries. They belong to the same taxonomic family as kangaroos and sometimes the same genus, but kangaroos are specifically categorised into the four largest species of the family. The term "wallaby" is an informal designation generally used for any macropod that is smaller than a kangaroo or a wallaroo that has not been designated otherwise.
Macropodidae is a family of marsupials that includes kangaroos, wallabies, tree-kangaroos, wallaroos, pademelons, quokkas, and several other groups. These genera are allied to the suborder Macropodiformes, containing other macropods, and are native to the Australian continent, New Guinea and nearby islands.
Shark Bay is a World Heritage Site in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia. The 23,000-square-kilometre (8,900 sq mi) area is located approximately 800 kilometres (500 mi) north of Perth, on the westernmost point of the Australian continent. UNESCO's listing of Shark Bay as a World Heritage Site reads:
François Auguste Péron was a French naturalist and explorer.
Threatened fauna of Australia are those species and subspecies of birds, fish, frogs, insects, mammals, molluscs, crustaceans, and reptiles to be found in Australia that are in danger of becoming extinct. This article lists species classified as threatened species under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
Sthenurinae is a subfamily within the marsupial family Macropodidae, known as short-faced kangaroos or sthenurine kangaroos. No members of this subfamily are extant today, with all becoming extinct by the late Pleistocene. Procoptodon goliah, the largest macropodid known to have existed, was a sthenurine kangaroo, but sthenurines occurred in a range of sizes, with Procoptodon gilli being the smallest at the size of a small wallaby.
Sthenurus is an extinct genus of kangaroos. With a length around 3 m (10 ft), some species were twice as large as modern extant species. Sthenurus was related to the better-known Procoptodon. The subfamily Sthenurinae is believed to have separated from its sister taxon, the Macropodinae, halfway through the Miocene, and then its population grew during the Pliocene.
The Macropodiformes, also known as macropods, are one of the three suborders of the large marsupial order Diprotodontia. They may in fact be nested within one of the suborders, Phalangeriformes. Kangaroos, wallabies and allies, bettongs, potoroos and rat kangaroos are all members of this suborder.
The Baudin expedition of 1800 to 1803 was a French expedition to map the coast of New Holland. Nicolas Baudin was selected as leader in October 1800. The expedition started with two ships, Géographe, captained by Baudin, and Naturaliste captained by Jacques Hamelin, and was accompanied by nine zoologists and botanists, including Jean-Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour, François Péron and Charles-Alexandre Lesueur as well as the geographer Pierre Faure.
The boodie, also known as the burrowing bettong or Lesueur's rat-kangaroo, is a small, furry, rat-like mammal native to Australia. Once common throughout the continent, it is now restricted to a few coastal islands. A member of the rat-kangaroo family (Potoroidae), it lives in burrows and is active at night when it forages for fungi, roots, and other plant matter. It is about the size of a rabbit and, like most marsupials, carries its young in a pouch.
The Western barred bandicoot, also known as the Shark Bay bandicoot or the Marl, is a small species of bandicoot; now extinct across most of its former range, the western barred bandicoot only survives on offshore islands and in fenced sanctuaries on the mainland.
The rufous hare-wallaby, also known as the mala, is a small macropod found in Australia. It was formerly widely distributed across the western half of the continent, but naturally occurring populations are now confined to Bernier Island and Dorre Island Islands off Western Australia.
The Lake Mackay hare-wallaby, also known as the central hare-wallaby or kuluwarri, is an extinct species of macropod formerly found in central Australia. Very little is known about it.
Simosthenurus, also referred to as the short-faced kangaroo, is an extinct genus of megafaunal macropods that existed in Australia, specifically Tasmania, during the Pleistocene. Analysis of Simosthenurus fossils has contributed to the finding that there are three lineages of macropods: Sthenurinae, Macropodinae, and Lagostrophinae. The genus Simosthenurus was among the sthenurines.
Yalgoo is an interim Australian bioregion located in Western Australia. It has an area of 5,087,577 hectares. The bioregion, together with the Avon Wheatbelt and Geraldton Sandplains bioregions, is part of the larger Southwest Australia savanna ecoregion as classified by the World Wildlife Fund.
Faure Island is a 58 km2 island pastoral lease and nature reserve, east of the Francois Peron National Park on the Peron Peninsula, in Shark Bay, Western Australia. It lies in line with the Monkey Mia resort to the west, and the Wooramel River on the eastern shore of Shark Bay. It is surrounded by the Shark Bay Marine Park and Shark Bay World Heritage Site and, as the Faure Island Sanctuary, is owned and managed by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC).
Bernier Island is one of three islands that comprise the Bernier and Dorre Island Nature Reserve in the Shark Bay World Heritage area in Western Australia.
The Macropodidae are an extant family of marsupial with the distinction of the ability to move bipedally on the hind legs, sometimes by jumping, as well as quadrupedally. They are herbivores, but some fossil genera like Ekaltadeta are hypothesised to have been carnivores. The taxonomic affiliations within the family and with other groups of marsupials is still in flux. Macropodids are considered to be the most diverse group of marsupial herbivores ever to have evolved, and have been the subject of more phylogenetic studies than any other marsupial family.
Dorre Island is one of three islands that make up the Bernier and Dorre Island Nature Reserve in the Shark Bay World Heritage area in Western Australia. The island was named after Peter Dorre, the pilot of a Dutch vessel, the Eendracht, in 1616.
Heirisson Prong is a community managed reserve established for the conservation of threatened mammals at Shark Bay in Western Australia. The reserve is at the point of a long narrow peninsula of the same name that juts into Shark Bay from the south.