Pseudomys
Pseudomys is a genus of rodent that contains a wide variety of mice native to Australia and New Guinea. They are among the few terrestrial placental mammals that colonised Australia without human intervention.

Christopher Watson ( http://www.comebirdwatching.blogspot.com/ ) · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
- Australian mousePBDB
- Sits inside
- RodentiaPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Rodentia
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Rodentia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 3.5 million years on record.
The record covers at least 3.6 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 0 Mya.
78 occurrences of Pseudomys 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
78 occurrences- Pliocene4%
- Pleistocene89%
- Holocene7%
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.
Found in
2 formations
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The named rock units Pseudomys has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 76 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Pseudomys and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Pseudomys and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
306 taxa- Rattus16 sites
- Mastacomys14 sites
- Antechinus flavipes13 sites
- Isoodon obesulus12 sites
- Notomys12 sites
- Pseudocheirus peregrinus12 sites
- Bettongia lesueur11 sites
- Cercartetus nanus11 sites
- Dasyurus viverrinus11 sites
- Macropus11 sites
- Petaurus breviceps11 sites
- Bettongia10 sites
- Cercartetus lepidus10 sites
- Perameles gunnii10 sites
- Sminthopsis murina10 sites
- Bettongia penicillata9 sites
- Macropus (Macropus) giganteus9 sites
- Phascogale tapoatafa9 sites
- Potorous platyops9 sites
- Sminthopsis crassicaudata9 sites
- Thylacoleo carnifex9 sites
- Trichosurus vulpecula9 sites
- Conilurus8 sites
- Macropus rufogriseus8 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 26 sites for Pseudomys, 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
20 references- Late Quaternary Small Mammal Faunas of the Naracoorte Caves World Heritage Area20
- Pleistocene fossil vertebrate sites of the South East region of South Australia15
- Pleistocene fossil vertebrate sites of the South East region of South Australia II9
- Palaeontological excavation and taphonomic investigation of the late Pleistocene fossil deposit in Grant Hall, Victoria Fossil Cave, Naracoorte, South Australia5
- Analysis of a late Quaternary deposit and small mammal fauna from Nettle Cave, Jenolan, New South Wales5
- Systematics and evolution of the sthenurine kangaroos4
- Vertebrate remains from the Nullarbor caves, Western Australia3
- Tropical Rainforests of North Queensland: Their Conservation Significance2
- Late Pleistocene Faunal Remains from Seton Rock Shelter, Kangaroo Island, South Australia2
- Phascolarctos (Marsupialia, Vombatoidea) and an associated fossil fauna from Koala Cave near Yanchep, Western Australia2
- Prehistoric mammal faunas from two small caves in the extreme southwest of Western Australia2
- Early Pleistocene mammals from the Nelson Baylocal fauna, Portland, Victoria, Australia1
Each of the 78 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. 8 further references are not listed. 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 content2
Picture of Pseudomys
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Christopher Watson ( http://www.comebirdwatching.blogspot.com/ )
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Pseudomys australis · SAMA:Mammalogy:M17979
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Pseudomys”
- 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 itRodentia through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gray 1832