Животный МИР
Млекопитающие
(Сумчатые)

Инфракласс: Metatheria = Сумчатые

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Семейство: Macropodidae = Кенгуровые
Род: Aepyprymnus  = Большие крысиные кенгуру

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Семейство: Macropodidae Owen, 1839 = Кенгуровые
Род: Aepyprymnus Garrod, 1875 =Большие крысиные кенгуру
       Вид: Aepyprymnus rufescens Gray = Большой крысиный кенгуру, рыжая кенгуровая крыса (Photo by H. & J.Beste)

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Род больших крысиных кенгуру = Aepyprymnus Garrod, 1875
      В роде единственный вид: большой крысиный кенгуру — А. rufescens Gray, 1837.
      Размеры мелкие сравнительно с другими представителями семейства, но наибольшие среди крысиных кенгуру. Длина тела около 52 см. Длина хвоста около 38 см. Уши более широкие и округлые, чем у других крысиных кенгуру.
      Две узкие полосы волос идут от спинки носа к верхней части носового зеркала. В остальном сходен с другими крысиными кенгуру. Волосяной покров длинный и довольно грубый, на спинной стороне серо-красноватый с беловатыми полосами на огузке, на брюшной белый. Задние части ушей черные.
      Обитает в прибрежных ландшафтах, населяя степи, саванны и светлые леса. Держится поодиночке. Активность ночная. Строит из травы гнездо, в котором проводит дневное время (возможно, только в зимний период). Питается в основном корнями растений.
      Распространен от востока Квинсленда до востока Нового Южного Уэльса.
      Численность этого кенгуру сильно пострадала в результате акклиматизации лисиц.

 RUFOUS BETTONG Aepyprymnus rufescens
      What is a Rufous Bettong?
      Rufous Bettongs are one of the smaller species in the great family Macropodidae, usually called ‘macropods’, which consists of over 50 kinds of kangaroos, wallabies and rat-kangaroos, found only in Australia and New Guinea. Full-grown wild Rufous Bettongs weigh about 2 kg, so are about the size of a large rabbit. They face short muzzles, small and rounded ears, and grizzled fur that is reddish (“rufous”) across the neck and shoulders. They are too small to defend themselves against dingoes, eagles, or the introduced Red Fox, now one of their greatest enemies.
      How do they live?
      Rufous Bettongs live alone, and spend the day hidden in a nest that they build for themselves out of grass, leaves and bark. The bettong gathers this material and wraps its tail around the bundle to carry it to the nest site, hidden under a tussock, a log or a rock.
      At dusk bettongs come out to feed, but will sprint back to the nest if alarmed. In the daytime, if a dingo or human approaches its nest, the bettong will freeze until the intruder is almost on it, and then burst out of the nest at high speed, disappearing into a hollow log or other safe refuge before the person or dog can catch it.
      On coming out of their nests at dusk, the first thing bettongs do is to stretch their back and legs, stiff from sitting crouched all day long. If the bettong is a female, she then moves off to seek food. Males often emerge from their nests early, and then they visit the nests of nearby females, sniffing at the nest to check whether the female is coming into season. If she shows signs of being ready to mate, the male will stay near her until she leaves her nest, when he will do his best to court her and attempt to mate with her. Females are as big as males, and can be very aggressive if they do not want to be courted and mated. When he has found no females to court, the male also will go foraging.
      What do bettongs eat?
      The Rufous Bettong, like all rat-kangaroo species (there are 9 species of bettongs, potoroos and rat-kangaroos), is a very specialised plant-eater. The rat-kangaroos dig up and eat underground storage-organs of plants: tubers, bulbs, corms, and swollen roots, and especially truffles, which are the spore-bearing bodies of underground fungi. Those fungi (called ectomycorhizal fungi) associate with the rootlets of trees such as eucalypts, helping the tree to take up minerals from the soil. By digging up and eating the truffles, bettongs disperse those spores in their dung, helping the fungi to spread to new hosts. In that way bettongs play an important role in the ecosystems they live in. Restoring bettongs to areas from which they have disappeared may benefit the health of the whole ecosystem.
      Bettong breeding
      A female bettong gives birth to one young at a time, after about 5 weeks gestation. She carries that young secure in a forward-facing pouch for another three or four months, before it leaves the pouch permanently, although it continues to drink milk for a few weeks more. As soon as her pouch is empty, the female may give birth again; and she will mate once more soon after giving birth, keeping the partly-developed embryo unattached to the womb, and therefore not developing any further, until her current pouch-young is a month short of quitting the pouch. Then the embryo attaches to the womb and starts developing again, to be born soon after the previous young leaves the pouch permanently.
      A young female may be ready to breed almost as soon as she leaves her mother’s pouch. In captivity, a female can produce almost three young a year; but in the wild they breed more slowly. Males can breed when they are less than a year old.
      Why do bettongs need to be conserved?
      Until about 1900, the Rufous Bettong occurred widely from the Murray River (on the southern border of New South Wales) north to Cape York, and from the coast to the western slopes of the Dividing Range, in many grassy or shrubby, wooded or lightly forested habitats. By the 1940s they had disappeared from most of New South Wales except the dingo-occupied lands of the north-east; by 2000 they were so rare in NSW that they were declared Vulnerable. They remain fairly widespread in cattle country in Queensland, but have disappeared from some areas in that State, too.
      Why did they disappear? We cannot be sure, but our best guess is that they were killed out by a combination of land-clearing and predation by foxes that were supported by plenty of rabbits. The foxes never went hungry, because of the rabbits, so could catch the last bettongs without starving themselves. Many other native mammals of about the same size as bettongs have suffered the same fate.
      Conservation of bettongs requires control over fox predation. That means either finding a way of killing foxes, or of keeping them out of the places where the threatened species live. Yaraandoo has built a large enclosure to keep foxes and cats out of habitat that suits Rufous Bettongs.
      What is being done at Yaraandoo?
      At Yaraandoo we are trying to do something practical to help conserve small Australian mammals like the Rufous Bettong. We are studying how bettongs that have been bred in captivity manage when they are returned to the wild. Do they know how to find wild food? Can they still build nests? Will they know how to interact with other bettongs? And so on.
      It is early days, but the answers look encouraging. www.yaraandoo.com.au/ bettongs.html