Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Diprotodontia > Hypsiprymnodontidae > Hypsiprymnodon > Hypsiprymnodon moschatus

Hypsiprymnodon moschatus (Musky Rat-kangaroo; musky 'rat'-kangaroo)

Wikipedia Abstract

The musky rat-kangaroo (Hypsiprymnodon moschatus) is a marsupial species found only in the rainforests of northeast Australia. Although some scientists place this species as a subfamily (Hypsiprymnodontinae) of the family Potoroidae, the most recent classification places it in the family Hypsiprymnodontidae with prehistoric rat-kangaroos. The generic name combines the Ancient Greek hyps- (‘high’), prymnos (πρυμνός ‘hindmost’), and odōn (‘teeth’).Its specific name, moschātus, is scientific Latin for ‘musk’.
View Wikipedia Record: Hypsiprymnodon moschatus

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
17
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
43
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 34.11
EDGE Score: 3.56
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  1.102 lbs (500 g)
Diet [2]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Frugivore, Herbivore
Diet - Fruit [2]  20 %
Diet - Invertibrates [2]  70 %
Diet - Plants [2]  10 %
Forages - Ground [2]  100 %
Female Maturity [1]  1 year
Male Maturity [1]  1 year
Litter Size [1]  2
Litters / Year [3]  1
Maximum Longevity [3]  6 years
Snout to Vent Length [3]  13 inches (34 cm)
Weaning [1]  9 months

Ecoregions

Name Countries Ecozone Biome Species Report Climate Land
Use
Einasleigh upland savanna Australia Australasia Tropical and Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands
Queensland tropical rain forests Australia Australasia Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests  

Protected Areas

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Competing SpeciesCommon Prey Count
Casuarius casuarius (Southern Cassowary)1
Pseudochirops archeri (Green Ringtail)1
Pteropus conspicillatus (spectacled flying fox)3

Predators

Dasyurus maculatus (Tiger Quoll)[6]

Consumers

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 3Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 4Dennis, Andrew James (1997) "Musky Rat-kangaroos, Hypsiprymnodon moschatus: cursorial frugivores in Australia's wet-tropical rain forests". PhD thesis, James Cook University.
♦ 5"Fig-eating by vertebrate frugivores: a global review", MIKE SHANAHAN, SAMSON SO, STEPHEN G. COMPTON and RICHARD CORLETT, Biol. Rev. (2001), 76, pp. 529–572
♦ 6Dasyurus maculatus, Menna E. Jones, Robert K. Rose, and Scott Burnett, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 676, pp. 1–9 (2001)
♦ 7Species Interactions of Australia Database, Atlas of Living Australia, Version ala-csv-2012-11-19
♦ 8Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0