Rainforest bandicoot

BIRD: linking the biodiversity community

Category: Marsupials

The rainforest bandicoots (family Peroryctidae) are small to medium sized marsupial omnivores native to New Guinea and nearby areas, including far-northern Australia, Seram, and Kiriwina. Together with the true bandicoots (family Peramelidae) they make up the order Peramelemorphia.

Where the true bandicoots originated in Australia and on the whole are well adapted for that relatively arid continent, the rainforest bandicoots evolved in New Guinea and although they occupy a wide range of habitats, are primarily creatures of the dense, wet tropical forests.

Just as there is a single species of true bandicoot which has crossed Torres Strait to colonise New Guinea (the Northern Brown Bandicoot), there is a single species of rainforest bandicoot which has crossed in the opposite direction, and occupies the most northerly part of Australia: the Rufous Spiny Bandicoot.

There are 11 species in 3 genera, the smallest weighing less than 100 grams (roughly half the size of a rat) and the largest reaching over 5 kilograms (the size of a large domestic cat).

• ORDER PERAMELEMORPHIA
  • Family Peramelidae true bandicoots, 10 species, 3 extinct
  • Family Peroryctidae: 11 species
    • Clara's Echymipera, Echymipera clara
    • Menzie's Echymipera, Echymipera echinista
    • Common Echymipera, Echymipera kalabu
    • Kiriwina Bandicoot, Echymipera davidi
    • Rufous Spiny Bandicoot, Echymipera rufescens
    • Striped Bandicoot, Microperoryctes longicauda
    • Mouse Bandicoot, Microperoryctes murina
    • Papuan Bandicoot, Microperoryctes papuensis
    • Giant Bandicoot, Peroryctes broadbenti
    • Raffray's Bandicoot, Peroryctes raffrayana
    • Seram Bandicoot, Rhynchomeles prattorum