1.
Eastern barred bandicoot
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The eastern barred bandicoot is a small, rabbit-sized marsupial native to Tasmania and Victoria, southeastern Australia. It is one of three extant bandicoot species in the genus Perameles, the eastern barred bandicoot weighs less than 2 kg and has a short tail and three to four whitish bars across the rump. The Eastern barred bandicoot has two separated populations, one on the mainland of Australia and one on the island of Tasmania, the Tasmanian form is somewhat larger than the mainland form as the average adult mass is 750 g in Victoria and 1,000 g in Tasmania. It lives for just two to three years and is not gregarious, males occupy large home ranges compared to females and only consort with females for mating. It emerges from its nest at dusk to forage for a variety of invertebrates including crickets, beetles, during the day it rests in a grass-lined nest. When foraging, it uses its nose to probe deep into the soil. Females have 8 nipples and can produce a maximum of 5 young in one litter with an average of 2 to 3 young, gestation lasts just 12 days—this is one of the shortest gestation periods of any mammal. Young are weaned at 55 days and emerged juveniles remain dependent upon the mother, given ideal conditions, females can have up to five litters per year although reproduction becomes depressed in summer and ceases altogether in times of drought. The eastern barred bandicoot was once distributed across the Basalt Plains of south west Victoria, due to predation by introduced foxes and cats, along with land-clearing for farming practices, the Victorian subspecies is critically endangered. Since 1989, eight reintroduction sites have established across the bandicoots former range. The conservation of Eastern barred bandicoots in Victoria now depends upon the success of captive breeding, a management plan, developed in 1987 and revised in 1989, recommended the first reintroduction of the eastern barred bandicoot in Victoria at Woodlands Historic Park,20 km northwest of Melbourne. Animals were translocated from the last remaining free-ranging mainland population in Hamilton, unfortunately, populations at four sites are now extinct, functionally extinct at Woodlands Historic park, declining at Mooramong and increasing at Hamilton Community Parklands and Mount Rothwell. The last remaining wild population which was found along the Grange Burn in Hamilton has also been declared extinct. The estimated population size for the Victorian Eastern Barred bandicoot is 150 individuals, the Tasmanian subspecies is vulnerable to extinction. This species is more widespread than its mainland cousin because Tasmania provides large areas of habitat and because the island lacks the bandicoots main predator. In the state of Victoria, a Recovery Team oversees actions aimed at conserving the Victorian subspecies, representatives of government agencies, NGOs and private conservation groups collaborate to develop and implement actions to improve the species outlook. Volunteers are encouraged to participate in recovery efforts arranged by Conservation Volunteers as part of the Wild Futures program, an effective recovery tactic currently in use is the exclusion of invasive predators from populations of threatened eastern barred bandicoots through the extensive use of conservation fences. Non-native predator species that are fenced out from endangered populations include feral cats, another important feature of conservation fences are that they restrict the spread of infectious diseases among the few remaining animals
2.
Marsupial
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Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia and the Americas, a distinctive characteristic common to these species is that most of the young are carried in a pouch. Well-known marsupials include kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, possums, opossums, wombats, Tasmanian devils, others include the numbat, the bandicoot, the bettong, the bilby, the quoll, and the quokka. Marsupials represent the clade originating from the last common ancestor of extant metatherians, like other mammals in the Metatheria, they give birth to relatively undeveloped young that often reside with the mother in a pouch, for a certain amount of time. Close to 70% of the 334 extant species occur on the Australian continent, the remaining 100 are found in the Americas — primarily in South America, but thirteen in Central America, and one in North America, north of Mexico. Taxonomically, the two divisions of Marsupialia are, American and Australian marsupials. The order Microbiotheria is found in South America, but is believed to be closely related to Australian marsupials. There are many small species in each group. The term opossum is used to refer to American species, while similar Australian species are properly called possums, again, shrew opossums are more closely related to australidelphians than to true opossums. Order Notoryctemorphia. Marsupials have the characteristics of mammals—e. g. Mammary glands, three middle ear bones, and true hair, there are, however, striking differences as well as a number anatomical features that separate them from Eutherians. In addition to the front pouch, which contains multiple nipples for the protection and sustenance of their young, ossified patellae are absent in most modern marsupials and epipubic bones are present. Marsupials also lack a gross communication between the right and left brain hemispheres, the skull has peculiarities in comparison to higher mammals. In general, the skull is small and tight. Holes are located in the front of the orbit, the cheekbone is enlarged and extends further to the rear. The angular extension of the jaw is bent toward the center. Another feature is the palate which, in contrast to the higher mammals foramina. The teeth differ from that of mammals, so that all taxa except wombats have a different number of incisors in the upper and lower jaws
3.
Omnivore
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Omnivore /ˈɒmnivɔər/ is a consumption classification for animals that have the capability to obtain chemical energy and nutrients from materials originating from plant and animal origin. Often, omnivores also have the ability to incorporate food sources such as algae, fungi, omnivores come from diverse backgrounds that often independently evolved sophisticated consumption capabilities. For instance, dogs evolved from primarily carnivorous organisms while pigs evolved from primarily herbivorous organisms, what this means is that physical characteristics are often not reliable indicators of whether an animal has the ability to obtain energy and nutrients from both plant and animal matter. The variety of different animals that are classified as omnivores can be placed into categories depending on their feeding behaviors. Frugivores include maned wolves and orangutans, insectivores include swallows and pink fairy armadillos, granivores include large ground finches, all of these animals are omnivores, yet still fall into special niches in terms of feeding behaviors and preferred foods. Being omnivores gives these animals more food security in times or makes possible living in less consistent environments. The word omnivore derives from the Latin omnis, and vora, from vorare, having been coined by the French, traditionally the definition for omnivory was entirely behavioral by means of simply including both animal and vegetable tissue in the diet. This has subsequently conditioned two context specific definitions, behavioral, This definition is used to specify if a species or individual is actively consuming both plant and animal materials. Physiological, This definition is used in academia to specify species that have the capability to obtain energy. Though Carnivora is a taxon for species classification, no equivalent exists for omnivores. The Carnivora order does not include all species, and not all species within the Carnivora taxon are carnivorous. It is common to find physiological carnivores consuming materials from plants or physiological herbivores consuming material from animals, e. g. felines eating grass, from a behavioral aspect, this would make them omnivores, but from the physiological standpoint, this may be due to zoopharmacognosy. Physiologically, animals must be able to both energy and nutrients from plant and animal materials to be considered omnivorous. For instance, it is documented that animals such as giraffes, camels. Felines, which are regarded as obligate carnivores, occasionally eat grass to regurgitate indigestibles, aid with hemoglobin production. Occasionally, it is found that animals historically classified as carnivorous may deliberately eat plant material, for example, in 2013 it was considered that American alligators may be physiologically omnivorous once investigations had been conducted on why they occasionally eat fruits. It was suggested that alligators probably ate fruits both accidentally but also deliberately, life-history omnivores is a specialized classification given to organisms that change their eating habits during their life cycle. Some species, such as grazing waterfowl like geese, are known to eat animal tissue at one stage of their lives
4.
Peramelemorphia
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The order Peramelemorphia includes the bandicoots and bilbies, it equates approximately to the mainstream of marsupial omnivores. Their size varies from about 140 grams up to 4 kilograms, the position of the Peramelemorphia within the marsupial family tree has long been puzzling and controversial. There are two features in the order that appear to show a clear evolutionary link with another marsupial group, the type of foot. Unfortunately, these clear signposts point in opposite directions, all members of the order are polyprotodont —in the case of the Peramelemorphia, three pairs. This suggests that they have evolved within Dasyuromorphia, on the other hand, they also have an unusual feature in their feet, the second and third toes are fused together. This condition is called syndactyly, and is characteristic of the Diprotodontia, recent molecular analyses have resulted in a phylogenetic reconstruction of the members of Peramelemorphia with quite strong support. The most basal split separates Thylacomyidae from all other bandicoots, probably the next to diverge was the recently extinct Chaeropodidae. However, very few species have been recovered to date. The first species of fossil peramelemorphian was described by R. A. Stirton in 1955, the specimen Stirton described was a partial lower jaw from the Tirari Desert in Central Australia, Pliocene in age. The lower jaw morphology suggested a relationship with bilbies, and was named Ischnodon australis and it was not until 1976 that Archer and Wade described the next fossil bandicoot. A single upper molar was recovered from the Bluff Downs fossil site, Allingham Formation, in northern Queensland, the tooth was similar to that of species of Perameles, and was therefore named Perameles allinghamensis. In 1995, the first Miocene species was described from Riversleigh, the species was represented by several upper and lower jaws, which were smaller than any living bandicoots and had a very primitive dentition. A skull was recovered in 2000, the first for any fossil peramelemorphian to date. In 1997, Muirhead, Dawson and Archer described a new species of Perameles, Perameles bowensis, the same species was later reported in 2000 from Chinchilla, Queensland by Mackness and colleagues. In 2002, Price described a new species Perameles, Perameles sobbei, from the Darling Downs and this species was represented by a lower jaw and a few isolated lower molars. Additional material were later described in 2005 from the same site, a second species of Yarala, Yarala kida, was described in 2006 by Schwartz. This species was recovered from Kangaroo Well, a late Oligocene site from the Northern Territory in Australia and this species is thought to be even more primitive than Yarala burchfieldi. The second fossil skull of any fossil peramelemorphian was also recovered from Miocene sites of Riversleigh, in fact, more than one skull of this new species was found, and was significantly different from any other bandicoot to erect a new genus, Galadi
5.
Endemism
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The extreme opposite of endemism is cosmopolitan distribution. An alternative term for a species that is endemic is precinctive, the word endemic is from New Latin endēmicus, from Greek ενδήμος, endēmos, native. Endēmos is formed of en meaning in, and dēmos meaning the people, the term, precinctive, has been suggested by some scientists, and was first used in botany by MacCaughey in 1917. It is the equivalent of endemism, precinction was perhaps first used by Frank and McCoy. That definition excludes artificial confinement of examples by humans in far-off botanical gardens or zoological parks, physical, climatic, and biological factors can contribute to endemism. The orange-breasted sunbird is found in the fynbos vegetation zone of southwestern South Africa. The glacier bear is found only in limited places in Southeast Alaska, political factors can play a part if a species is protected, or actively hunted, in one jurisdiction but not another. There are two subcategories of endemism, paleoendemism and neoendemism, paleoendemism refers to species that were formerly widespread but are now restricted to a smaller area. Neoendemism refers to species that have arisen, such as through divergence and reproductive isolation or through hybridization. Endemics can easily become endangered or extinct if their restricted habitat changes, particularly—but not only—due to human actions, there were millions of both Bermuda petrels and Bermuda cedars in Bermuda when it was settled at the start of the seventeenth century. By the end of the century, the petrels were thought extinct, cedars, already ravaged by centuries of shipbuilding, were driven nearly to extinction in the twentieth century by the introduction of a parasite. Bermuda petrels and cedars are now rare, as are species endemic to Bermuda
6.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
7.
New Guinea
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New Guinea is a large Island in the South West Pacific region. It is the worlds second-largest island, after Greenland, covering an area of 785,753 km2. The island is divided between two countries, Papua New Guinea to the east, and Indonesia to the west, the island has been known by various names. The name Papua was used to refer to parts of the island before contact with the West and its etymology is unclear, one theory states that it is from Tidore, the language used by the Sultanate of Tidore, which controlled parts of the islands coastal region. The name came from papo and ua, which means not united or, ploeg reports that the word papua is often said to derive from the Malay word papua or pua-pua, meaning frizzly-haired, referring to the highly curly hair of the inhabitants of these areas. When the Portuguese and Spanish explorers arrived in the island via the Spice Islands, when the Dutch colonized it as part of Netherlands East Indies, they called it Nieuw Guinea. The name Irian was used in the Indonesian language to refer the island and Indonesian province, the name was promoted in 1945 by Marcus Kaisiepo, brother of the future governor Frans Kaisiepo. It is taken from the Biak language of Biak Island, and means to rise and this name of Irian is the name used in the Biak language and other languages such as Serui, Merauke and Waropen. The name was used until 2001, when the name Papua was again used for the island, the name Irian, which was originally favored by natives, is now considered to be a name imposed by the authority of Jakarta. New Guinea is an island to the north of Australia, and it is isolated by the Arafura Sea to the west and the Torres Strait and Coral Sea to the east. A spine of east–west mountains, the New Guinea Highlands, dominates the geography of New Guinea, stretching over 1,600 km from the head to the tail of the island. The western half of the island of New Guinea contains the highest mountains in Oceania, rising up to 4,884 m high, the tree line is around 4,000 m elevation and the tallest peaks contain permanent equatorial glaciers—which have been retreating since at least 1936. Various other smaller mountain ranges occur both north and west of the central ranges, except in high elevations, most areas possess a warm humid climate throughout the year, with some seasonal variation associated with the northeast monsoon season. At 4,884 metres, Puncak Jaya makes New Guinea the worlds fourth highest landmass, Puncak Mandala, located in Papua, is the second highest peak on the island at 4,760 metres. Puncak Trikora, also in Papua, is 4,750 metres, mount Wilhelm is the highest peak on the PNG side of the border at 4,509 metres. Its granite peak is the highest point of the Bismarck Range, mount Giluwe 4,368 metres is the second highest summit in PNG. It is also the highest volcanic peak in Oceania, another major habitat feature is the vast southern and northern lowlands. Stretching for hundreds of kilometres, these include lowland rainforests, extensive wetlands, savanna grasslands, the southern lowlands are the site of Lorentz National Park, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site
8.
Order (biology)
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In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and recognized by the nomenclature codes. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, an immediately higher rank, superorder, may be added directly above order, while suborder would be a lower rank. A taxonomic unit, a taxon, in that rank, in that case the plural is orders. Example, The Juglans and Hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae, what does and does not belong to each order is determined by a taxonomist, as is whether a particular order should be recognized at all. Often there is no agreement, with different taxonomists each taking a different position. There are no rules that a taxonomist needs to follow in describing or recognizing an order. Some taxa are accepted almost universally, while others are recognised only rarely, for some groups of organisms, consistent suffixes are used to denote that the rank is an order. The Latin suffix -formes meaning having the form of is used for the name of orders of birds and fishes. The suffix -ales is for the name of orders of plants, fungi, for some clades covered by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a number of additional classifications are sometimes used, although not all of these are officially recognised. In their 1997 classification of mammals, McKenna and Bell used two levels between superorder and order, grandorder and mirorder. Michael Novacek inserted them at the same position, michael Benton inserted them between superorder and magnorder instead. This position was adopted by Systema Naturae 2000 and others, in botany, the ranks of subclass and suborder are secondary ranks pre-defined as respectively above and below the rank of order. Any number of further ranks can be used as long as they are clearly defined, the superorder rank is commonly used, with the ending -anae that was initiated by Armen Takhtajans publications from 1966 onwards. Carl Linnaeus was the first to apply it consistently to the division of all three kingdoms of nature in his Systema Naturae, for plants, Linnaeus orders in the Systema Naturae and the Species Plantarum were strictly artificial, introduced to subdivide the artificial classes into more comprehensible smaller groups. In French botanical publications, from Michel Adansons Familles naturelles des plantes and until the end of the 19th century, some of the plant families still retain the names of Linnaean natural orders or even the names of pre-Linnaean natural groups recognised by Linnaeus as orders in his natural classification. Such names are known as family names. In zoology, the Linnaean orders were used more consistently and that is, the orders in the zoology part of the Systema Naturae refer to natural groups. Some of his names are still in use
9.
Macrotis
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Bilbies, or rabbit-bandicoots, are desert-dwelling marsupial omnivores, they are members of the order Peramelemorphia. At the time of European colonisation of Australia, there were two species, the lesser bilby became extinct in the 1950s, the greater bilby survives but remains endangered. It is currently listed as a vulnerable species and it is on average 55 cm long, excluding the tail, which is usually around 29 cm long. Its fur is grey or white, it has a long pointy nose and very long ears, hence earning its nick-name. Macrotis means ‘big-eared’ in Greek, referring to the animals large, the familys current name Thylacomyidae is derived from an invalid synonym Thylacomys, meaning ‘pouched mouse’, from the Ancient Greek thýlakos and mys, sometimes misspelt Thalacomys. The term bilby is a loanword from the Yuwaalaraay Aboriginal language of northern New South Wales and it is known as dalgite in Western Australia, and the nickname pinkie is sometimes used in South Australia. The Wiradjuri of New South Wales also call it bilby, Bilbies have the characteristic long bandicoot muzzle and very big ears that radiate heat. They are about 29–55 cm long, compared to bandicoots, they have a longer tail, bigger ears, and softer, silky fur. The size of their ears allows them to have better hearing, most food is found by digging or scratching in the soil, and using their very long tongues. Unlike bandicoots, they are excellent burrowers and build extensive tunnel systems with their strong forelimbs and well-developed claws. A bilby typically makes a number of burrows within its range, up to about a dozen. The female bilbys pouch faces backwards, which prevents the pouch from getting filled with dirt while she is digging, Bilbies have a short gestation of about 12–14 days, one of the shortest among mammals. Bilbies are slowly becoming endangered because of loss and change. There is a recovery plan being developed for saving them. This program includes captive breeding, monitoring populations, and reestablishing bilbies where they once lived, there have been reasonably successful moves to popularise the bilby as a native alternative to the Easter Bunny by selling chocolate Easter Bilbies. Successful reintroductions have also occurred on the Peron Peninsula in Western Australia as a part of Western Shield, successful reintroductions have also occurred on other conservation lands, including islands and the Australian Wildlife Conservancys Scotia and Yookamurra Sanctuaries. There is a highly successful breeding program at Kanyana Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre near Perth. The placement of bilbies within the classification has changed in recent years
10.
Bandicota
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Bandicota is a genus of rodents from Asia. They are known as the bandicoot rats, pp. 894–1531 in Mammal Species of the World a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. D. E. Wilson and D. M. Reeder eds. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore
The dictionary definition of bandicoot at Wiktionary