Caloprymnus campestris (Desert Rat-Kangaroo)

[koeiyabe]

"Lost Animals (in Japanese)" by WWF Japan (1996)

[ada]

Still a good candidate for possible rediscovery as far as I'm concerned.

Did anyone else follow up on the 2011 sighting?

[Sebbe]

Jan 24, 2016 13:57:09 GMT ada said:

Did anyone else follow up on the 2011 sighting?

Quite possible but noting published about it as far as aim aware.

[surroundx]

Dixon, Joan M. (1988). Notes on the diet of three mammals presumed to be extinct: the Pig-footed Bandicoot, the Lesser Bilby and the Desert Rat Kangaroo. Victorian Naturalist 105: 208-211.

[surroundx]

Ogilby, J. Douglas. (1892). Catalogue of Australian Mammals, with Introductory Notes on General Mammalogy. Australian Museum, Sydney: Catalogue No. 16: viii + 142 pp.

[surroundx]

Finlayson, Hedley Herbert. (1932a). Caloprymnus campestris. Its Recurrence and Characters. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 56: 148-167.

[surroundx]

cites.org/sites/default/files/common/com/ac/26/E26-20i.pdf

[surroundx]

Lucas, Arthur Henry Shakespeare and Le Souëf, William Henry Dudley. (1909). The Animals of Australia: Mammals, Reptiles and Amphibians. Melbourne: Whitcombe and Tombs.

[surroundx]

experiment.com/projects/an-expedition-in-search-of-one-of-australia-s-most-mysterious-marsupials

[ada]

Aug 7, 2018 12:35:46 GMT surroundx said:

experiment.com/projects/an-expedition-in-search-of-one-of-australia-s-most-mysterious-marsupials

Well, they said they would return in December (I assume mid December) for the photo results. Let's see what they get. Even if not of the C.Camprestris, I trust we might get nice photos of desert marsupials.

[Sebbe]

An overlooked, early record of the desert rat-kangaroo (Caloprymnus campestris) from Lake Killalpaninna, South Australia.

The desert rat-kangaroo (Caloprymnus campestris) is known from specimens collected at just a few localities in north eastern South Australia. We examined a C. campestris skin (M21674) in the collection of the Australian Museum, revealing that it was collected by Henry James Hillier at Lake Killalpaninna in South Australia between 1902 and 1905. This is a new locality for C. campestris, and the most southerly recorded. Furthermore, it precedes Hedley Herbert Finlayson’s rediscovery of the desert rat-kangaroo in 1931 by more than 25 years.

www.publish.csiro.au/AM/justaccepted/AM18043

[ada]

Nov 30, 2018 19:27:43 GMT ada said:

Aug 7, 2018 12:35:46 GMT surroundx said:

experiment.com/projects/an-expedition-in-search-of-one-of-australia-s-most-mysterious-marsupials

Well, they said they would return in December (I assume mid December) for the photo results. Let's see what they get. Even if not of the C.Camprestris, I trust we might get nice photos of desert marsupials.

Well, nothing new since 2019. I guess covid might have imp[acted their plans.
experiment.com/u/5Gtldg

[Sebbe]

A search for the desert rat-kangaroo or ngudlukanta (Caloprymnus campestris) in north-eastern South Australia.

The desert rat-kangaroo or ‘ngudlukanta’ (Caloprymnus campestris) was once sparsely distributed in the Lake Eyre Basin of north-eastern South Australia and adjacent parts of Queensland, but has not been collected since the 1930s. However, numerous reported sightings, including some recent, provide some hope that it may still be extant. In 2018 and 2019, we searched for evidence of the animal at sites where it had been collected in the 1930s, and at places where people have since reported seeing an animal that fits its description. Our survey, which analysed data from more than 6000 camera trap nights, 536 predator scats and 226 km of spotlight transects, was the most extensive field-based search ever undertaken for this animal; but we found no evidence for its continued existence. Our work did detect other threatened species, including a range extension for the kowari (Dasyuroides byrnei), thereby demonstrating the value of surveys like this one. Because of the vastness and inaccessibility of much of the terrain comprising the supposed distribution of C. campestris, we do not see our null result as definitive for this poorly surveyed animal; we instead hope that it provides a starting point for future surveys aimed at resolving its status.

www.publish.csiro.au/AM/justaccepted/AM21022

[surroundx]

Westerman, Michael, Loke, Stella, Tan, Mun Hua and Kear, Benjamin. (2021). Mitogenome of the Extinct Desert ‘Rat-Kangaroo’ Times the Adaptation to Aridity in Macropodoids. Research Square [preprint]. doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1065679/v1

[Melanie]

Mitogenome of the extinct Desert ‘rat-kangaroo’ times the adaptation to aridity in macropodoids

Abstract

The evolution of Australia’s distinctive marsupial fauna has long been linked to the onset of continent-wide aridity. However, how this profound climate change event affected the diversification of extant lineages is still hotly debated. Here, we assemble a DNA sequence dataset of Macropodoidea—the clade comprising kangaroos and their relatives—that incorporates a complete mitogenome for the Desert ‘rat-kangaroo’, Caloprymnus campestris. This enigmatic species went extinct nearly 90 years ago and is known from a handful of museum specimens. Caloprymnus is significant because it was the only macropodoid restricted to extreme desert environments, and therefore calibrates the group’s specialisation for increasingly arid conditions. Our robustly supported phylogenies nest Caloprymnus amongst the bettongs Aepyprymnus and Bettongia. Dated ancestral range estimations further reveal that the Caloprymnus-Bettongia lineage originated in nascent xeric settings during the middle to late Miocene, ~ 12 million years ago (Ma), but subsequently radiated into fragmenting mesic habitats after the Pliocene to mid-Pleistocene. This timeframe parallels the ancestral divergences of kangaroos in woodlands and forests, but predates their adaptive dispersal into proliferating dry shrublands and grasslands from the late Miocene to mid-Pleistocene, after ~ 7 Ma. We thus demonstrate that protracted changes in both climate and vegetation likely staged the emergence of modern arid zone macropodoids.

www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-09568-0

[ada]

Still probably the most likely candidate for rediscovery as far as Australian marsupials go.

[redpinnipedgamer]

www.desertexpeditions.org/watti-watti-1






www.desertexpeditions.org/watti-watti-1

Desert Rat Kangaroo habitat circa 1931. Image: H.H. Finlayson

[redpinnipedgamer]

Photos from the book "The Red Center"