Phascogale tapoatafa
The brush-tailed phascogale, also known by its Australian native name tuan, the common wambenger, the black-tailed mousesack or the black-tailed phascogale, is a rat-sized arboreal carnivorous marsupial of the family Dasyuridae, characterized by a tuft of black silky hairs on the terminal portion of its tail. Males of this species do not live past the age of one, as they die after reproducing.
Suavejones79 · CC0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- brush-tailed phascogalePBDB
- Sits inside
- PhascogalePBDB
- Diet
- insectivore, carnivorePBDB, for Dasyuridae
- Life habit
- arborealPBDB, for Phascogale
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia
Time the record covers
At least 645 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 774 ka to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
11 occurrences of Phascogale tapoatafa on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
11 occurrences- Pleistocene99%
- Holoceneunder 1%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Phascogale tapoatafa and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Phascogale tapoatafa and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
148 taxa- Antechinus flavipes10 sites
- Dasyurus viverrinus10 sites
- Pseudocheirus peregrinus10 sites
- Sminthopsis murina10 sites
- Conilurus9 sites
- Mastacomys9 sites
- Petaurus breviceps9 sites
- Pseudomys9 sites
- Rattus9 sites
- Cercartetus nanus8 sites
- Isoodon obesulus8 sites
- Perameles gunnii8 sites
- Sminthopsis crassicaudata8 sites
- Cercartetus lepidus7 sites
- Notomys7 sites
- Sminthopsis7 sites
- Trichosurus vulpecula7 sites
- Acrobates pygmaeus6 sites
- Bettongia lesueur6 sites
- Potorous platyops6 sites
- Bettongia5 sites
- Hydromys5 sites
- Macropus (Macropus) giganteus5 sites
- Protemnodon brehus5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Phascogale tapoatafa, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
8 references- Late Quaternary Small Mammal Faunas of the Naracoorte Caves World Heritage Area3
- Pleistocene fossil vertebrate sites of the South East region of South Australia2
- Pleistocene fossil vertebrate sites of the South East region of South Australia II1
- Palaeontological excavation and taphonomic investigation of the late Pleistocene fossil deposit in Grant Hall, Victoria Fossil Cave, Naracoorte, South Australia1
- The late Quaternary sediments and fossil vertebrate fauna from Cathedral Cave, Wellington Caves, New South Wales1
- Analysis of a late Quaternary deposit and small mammal fauna from Nettle Cave, Jenolan, New South Wales1
- Quaternary vertebrate faunas from the Texas Caves of southeastern Queensland1
- Prehistoric mammal faunas from two small caves in the extreme southwest of Western Australia1
Each of the 11 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Phascogale tapoatafa
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Suavejones79
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Phascogale tapoatafa was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itPhascogale through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Meyer 1793)