Nullarbor Dwarf Bettong - Bettongia pusilla

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Nullarbor Dwarf Bettongs had a lighter lower jaw and smaller teeth than the surviving bettong species (Wikipedia-Autoren 2010).

This species once occurred in the Nullarbor Plain in Western Australia and South Australia (Burbidge 2008). The Nullarbor Plain is a flat and almost treeless area of arid or semi-arid in the south of Austalia (Wikipedia contributors 2011b). It is located on the Great Australian Bight coast with the Great Victoria Desert to its north (Wikipedia contributors 2011b).

Image: the location of the Nullarbor Plains in Australia (coloured red), the possible former range of the Nullarbor Dwarf Bettong. Created by Peter Maas for The Sixth Extinction website. This image has been licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 3.0 licence.

This species is only known from recent subfossils (McNamara 1997). It was common in Holocene cave deposits. Arboriginal people from the desert country of the south of South Australia and adjecent areas of Western Australia have known a very small kangaroo that does not match any species recorded alive within the last 200 years (Johnson 2006; Turnbridge 1991). The word they used for this animal is 'wirlpa', 'weelba' or some other variant (Johnson 2006). This bettong probably was extant after 1500 AD and there is little doubt that this species may have still been alive when Europeans began settling in Australia (Burbidge 2008; Johnson 2006). No evidence of the current existence of the Nullarbor Dwarf Bettong has been found during a survey in the Nullarbor Plains' habitat (Burbidge 2008).

The exact cause of this species' extinction is unknown.

The bettongs are species of the genus Bettongia, sometimes referred to as rat-kangaroos. Four surviving species are recognised: Eastern Bettong (Bettongia gaimardi), Burrowing Bettong or Boodie (Bettongia lesueur), Brush-tailed Bettong or Woylie (Bettongia penicillata} and the Northern Bettong (Bettongia tropica). The Brush-tailed Bettong is considered critically endangered and the Northern Bettong endangered, while the Eastern Bettong and the Burrowing Bettong are considered near threatened (IUCN 2010; Wikipedia contributors 2010)

Photo: An Eastern Bettong (Bettongia gaimardi), a bettong whose natural range includes south-eastern Australia and the eastern part of Tasmania. While the mainland population became extinct in the final years of the 19th century, the Tasmanian population has been regarded as secure (Wikipedia contributors 2011a). Photographed by John Harrison (Noodle snacks) on 3 August 2010. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Nullarbor Dwarf Bettong - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Burbidge, A. (2008). Bettongia pusilla. In: (IUCN 2010). IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2010.4. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 15 April 2011.

IUCN (2010). IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2010.4. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 16 April 2011.

Johnson, C. (2006). Australia's Mammal Extinctions: A Year History 50.000. Cambridge University Press.

McNamara, J.A. (1997). Some smaller macropod fossils of South Australia. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 117: 97-106.

Turnbridge, D. (1991). The story of the Flinders Ranges mammals. Kangaroo Press, Kenthurst, New South Wales, Australia. ISBN-10: 0864173903, ISBN-13: 978-0864173904.

Wikipedia-Autoren (2010). Nullarbor-Bürstenkänguru. In: Wikipedia, Die freie Enzyklopädie. Bearbeitungsstand: 11. Juli 2010, 08:54 UTC. URL: http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nullarbor-B%C3%BCrstenk%C3%A4nguru&oldid=76541942 (Abgerufen: 15. April 2011, 19:43 UTC).

Wikipedia contributors (2010). 'Bettong', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 11 December 2010, 12:54 UTC, <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bettong&oldid=401771796> [accessed 15 April 2011].

Wikipedia contributors (2011a). 'Eastern Bettong', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 10 March 2011, 18:34 UTC, <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eastern_Bettong&oldid=418166400> [accessed 15 April 2011]

Wikipedia contributors (2011b), 'Nullarbor Plain', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2 April 2011, 06:23 UTC, <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nullarbor_Plain&oldid=421940340> [accessed 16 April 2011]