The brush-tailed phascogale (Phascogale tapoatafa), also known by its Australian native name tuan,[3] the common wambenger, the black-tailed mousesack[4] or the black-tailed phascogale, is a rat-sized arboreal carnivorous marsupial of the family Dasyuridae, characterized by a tuft of black silky hairs on the terminal portion of its tail. Males of this species do not live past the age of one, as they die after reproducing.
Taxonomy
The brush-tailed phascogale was first described by Friedrich Meyer in 1793; George Shaw published a revised description in 1800. For some time it was considered a member of the opossum genus Didelphis, but this ended in 1844 when Coenraad Jacob Temminck erected the genus Phascogale. The species is closely related to the red-tailed phascogale (P. calura). Its scientific name, tapoatafa, is a reference to an indigenous Australian
name for the species. It has sometimes been known as Phascogale penicillata, referring to its brushed tail.
In 2015 three subspecies were identified, and the previous subspecies P. t. pirata was confirmed as a separate species P. pirata:[5][6]
P. t. tapoatafa, found in southeast Australia from South Australia to mid-coastal Queensland;
P. t. wambenger, found in southwest Western Australia;
P. t. kimberleyensis, found in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
The subspecies that the population in Cape York Peninsula represents has yet to be identified.
This phascogale is grey. Its tail is covered with long black hairs on the lower half that can erect, causing it to appear similar to a bottle brush.[7] Body length is between 16 and 27 cm (6.3 and 10.6 in) with a 16 to 24 cm tail. Males, which can reach up to 310 grams (11 oz), are larger than females, normally weighing less than 210 g.[8]
Distribution and habitat
The brush-tailed phascogale has a widespread but fragmented distribution throughout all states of Australia, excluding Tasmania. As a result of habitat destruction and predation by the red fox and feral cat, they are believed to have disappeared from roughly half of their former range. The species is considered very vulnerable to localised extinction.[9]
This species is a nocturnal and arboreal hunter. It is an opportunistic generalist that predominantly eats invertebrates,[10] though it also eats smaller mammals, birds, and lizards.[7] It also drinks nectar from flowering trees.[7] Consumption of bird eggs has also been recorded.[11] The species has been reported to attack domestic poultry.[12][13]
Breeding occurs between June and August when the females come into estrus. All male brush-tailed phascogales die before reaching one year of age, generally from stress-related diseases brought about by the energy expended in a bout of frenzied mating.[7] However, some captive males have lived to the age of three, though they were reproductively unviable after the first year.[7] Females nest in hollow trees, bearing litters of 7 to 8 young which stay in the nest to the age of 5 months.
^Aplin, Kenneth Peter; Rhind, Susan G.; Ten Have, J.; Chesser, Robert Terry (2015). "Taxonomic revision of Phascogale tapoatafa (Meyer, 1793) (Dasyuridae; Marsupialia), including descriptions of two new subspecies and confirmation of P. pirata Thomas, 1904 as a 'Top End' endemic". Zootaxa. 4055 (1): 1–73. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4055.1.1. PMID26701461.
^Jackson, Stephen; Groves, Colin (2015). Taxonomy of Australian mammals. CSIRO Publishing. ISBN9781486300129.
^Terry, William; Golden, Albert (2019). "An observation of nest robbing and bird predation by wild Brush-tailed Phascogales in central Victoria". Australian Zoologist. 40 (2): 237. doi:10.7882/AZ.2019.003.
^"Attacks on Poultry". Warwick Daily News (Qld. : 1919 -1954). 8 June 1940. p. 4. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
^Schmidt, Gerald D.; Edmonds, Stanley J. (1989). "Australiformis semoni (Linstow, 1898) n. Gen., n. Comb. (Acanthocephala: Moniliformidae) from Marsupials of Australia and New Guinea". The Journal of Parasitology. 75 (2): 215–7. doi:10.2307/3282769. JSTOR3282769. PMID2926590.
