It's a Kultarr
Posted by Trish Sloan on Thursday, December 2, 2010
Under: On The Jump-Up
On a night time expedition David Elliott was on a mission to take photos for the Biodiversity Program called 'Dinosaur to Dunnarts'! He took photo's of anything that posed for the camera. Armed with a torch, camera and keen eyes... David found this little critter!
All he could tell us was it was fast, tiny and stopped for a photo...only when it was in the spotlight!
Common Name: Kultarr (Antechinomys laniger - GOULD 1856)
Other Names: Jerboa Pouched Mouse, Wuhl Wuhl, Pithci-pitchi, Yurndu (Happold 1972, Woolley 1984, Tunbridge 1991)
Here what our experts how to say... It's very exciting!
'Wow that is a Kultarr, Antechinomys laniger. It's an elusive animal that is decling and rare in NSW and may be declining in Queensland. There were some at Idalia and around Charleville in 2008/2009, but they disappeared about May last year from those places. They are probably nomadic and sparse and hard to trap. the tend to appear and disappear seemingly randomly, not necessarily related to rainfall.'
Diana Fisher - Ecologist ARC Australian Research Fellow, University of Queensland.
'Imagine trying to follow and photograph, let alone see - a grey superball tossed at random and given a mystery spin into a mix of open arid and spikey Triodia (spinifex) and shrubs in the middle of the night!
Luckily, being a predator they are more than a touch nosey so they may stay long enough to look at you, which is better than the rodent hopping mice which are off at the first sign of potential trouble.
I think these hoppy things are both more common than realized, but being hard to trap and rarely seen they are unknown, more than anything else. Those long legs could also mean that Antchinomys are nomadic as they seem to appear at disappear from areas without rhyme or reason and other tiny predators that feed on the same sort of things and live similar lives don't need or have the long legs and don't seem to fluctuate quite as randomly - therefore there's got to be another reason. Perhaps travel it is? An animal worthy of more study once you work out how to do it!
Martyn Robinson - Naturalist, Australia Musuem
All he could tell us was it was fast, tiny and stopped for a photo...only when it was in the spotlight!
Common Name: Kultarr (Antechinomys laniger - GOULD 1856)
Other Names: Jerboa Pouched Mouse, Wuhl Wuhl, Pithci-pitchi, Yurndu (Happold 1972, Woolley 1984, Tunbridge 1991)
Here what our experts how to say... It's very exciting!
'Wow that is a Kultarr, Antechinomys laniger. It's an elusive animal that is decling and rare in NSW and may be declining in Queensland. There were some at Idalia and around Charleville in 2008/2009, but they disappeared about May last year from those places. They are probably nomadic and sparse and hard to trap. the tend to appear and disappear seemingly randomly, not necessarily related to rainfall.'
Diana Fisher - Ecologist ARC Australian Research Fellow, University of Queensland.
'Imagine trying to follow and photograph, let alone see - a grey superball tossed at random and given a mystery spin into a mix of open arid and spikey Triodia (spinifex) and shrubs in the middle of the night!
Luckily, being a predator they are more than a touch nosey so they may stay long enough to look at you, which is better than the rodent hopping mice which are off at the first sign of potential trouble.
I think these hoppy things are both more common than realized, but being hard to trap and rarely seen they are unknown, more than anything else. Those long legs could also mean that Antchinomys are nomadic as they seem to appear at disappear from areas without rhyme or reason and other tiny predators that feed on the same sort of things and live similar lives don't need or have the long legs and don't seem to fluctuate quite as randomly - therefore there's got to be another reason. Perhaps travel it is? An animal worthy of more study once you work out how to do it!
Martyn Robinson - Naturalist, Australia Musuem
How exciting! A highlight for 'Dinosaurs to Dunnarts'. We've found so much already so keep checking out our blog - you never know what we'll find next!
Until next time...
In : On The Jump-Up
Tags: kultarr biodiversity mammal
