Phascogalinae

BIRD: linking the biodiversity community

Category: Marsupials

The subfamily Phascogalinae includes about 12 small marsupial carnivores native to Australia-New Guinea: the phascogales and thr antechinuses. Like the quolls, the planigales and ningauis, the Tasmanian Devil, and a number of others, its members make up part of the biological order Dasyuromorphia: the carnivorous marsupials.

There are about 15 species in 2 genera. All members of the subfamily are small: the antechinus species vary in size but are mostly a little larger than a mouse; one of the two phascogales is slightly larger again, and the Brush-tailed Phascogale is the giant of the sufamily at an average of 250 grams, or the same size as a typical Black Rat.

For a small mammalian carnivore, the requirements of gross physical form are fairly strict: on first sight there is very little difference between an antechinus and a planigale or a dibbler — and for that matter not much obvious difference between any of these and the shrews of the northern hemisphere, which although quite unrelated, fill the same sort of ecological niches and often behave in very similar ways.

With the development of advanced microbiological analysis methods towards the end of the 20th Century, the antechinus group has shrunk considerably: many of the species once classified as "antechinuses" are not as closely related as previously thought, and they are now grouped with the quolls and others in the subfamily Dasyurinae. For example, the former "Sandstone Antechinus" is now the Northern Dibbler, and the desert-dwelling creature first called a "Fat-tailed Marsupial Mouse" in the late 19th Century became the "Red-eared Antechinus" — only for microbiological evidence to show that it is in fact not an antechinus or a mouse, with the result that is now the Fat-tailed Pseudantechinus.

• Family Dasyuridae (typical carnivorous marsupials)
  • Subfamily Dasyurinae (pseudantechinuses, Tasmanian Devil and others)
  • Subfamily Phascogalinae
    • Fawn Antechinus (Antechinus bellus)
    • Yellow-footed Antechinus (Antechinus flavipes)
    • Atherton Antechinus (Antechinus godmani)
    • Cinnamon Antechinus (Antechinus leo)
    • Swamp Antechinus (Antechinus minimus)
    • Brown Antechinus (Antechinus stuartii)
    • Agile Antechinus (Antechinus agilis)
    • Dusky Antechinus (Antechinus swainsonii)
    • Blacktailed Dasyure (Antechinus melanurus)
    • Long-nosed Antechinus (Antechinus naso)
    • Lesser Antechinus (Antechinus wilhelmina)
    • Red-tailed Phascogale (Phascogale calura)
    • Brush-tailed Phascogale (Phascogale tapoatafa)
  • Subfamily Sminthopsinae dunnarts and the Kultarr
  • Subfamily Planigalinae planigales and ningauas