Quoll
| Quoll | |
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| Eastern quoll (Dasyurus viverrinus) | |
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| Genus: | Dasyurus É. Geoffroy, 1796 |
Quolls (genus Dasyurus) are carnivorous marsupials native to Australia and Papua New Guinea.[1] There are six species of quoll, four in Australia and two in New Guinea.
The name dasyurus means "hairy tail".[2] Adults are between 25 and 75 cm long, with hairy tails about 20-35 cm long (about the size of a cat). Like all marsupials, females have a pouch to carry their babies.
Quolls are threatened by eating toxic cane toads, but a University of Sydney project is teaching them not to eat the toads.[3]
The family Dasyurini to which quolls belong also includes the Tasmanian devil, antechinuses, the kowari, and mulgaras.[1]
Quoll species
In the genus Dasyurus, these species exist:[1]
- New Guinean quoll, Dasyurus albopunctatus, New Guinea
- Western quoll or Chuditch, Dasyurus geoffroii, western Australia
- Northern quoll, Dasyurus hallucatus, northern Australia
- Tiger quoll or Spotted quoll, Dasyurus maculatus, eastern Australia
- Bronze quoll, Dasyurus spartacus, New Guinea
- Eastern quoll, Dasyurus viverrinus, Tasmania (formerly mainland eastern Australia)[4]
There is at least one fossil species from the Pliocene, that is D. dunmalli.[5]
References
- 1 2 3 Groves, Colin (2005). Wilson, D. E.; Reeder, D. M. (eds.). Mammal Species of the World (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 24–25. ISBN 0-801-88221-4.
- ↑ Serena, M.; Soderquist, T. (1995). "Western Quoll". In Strahan, Ronald (ed.). The Mammals of Australia. Reed Books. pp. 62–64.
- ↑ "Taste training for northern quolls". Australian Geographic. Archived from the original on 2010-04-17. Retrieved 2010-04-15.
- ↑ Erica Rex (November 23, 2008). "Hope for Tasmanian devils, a decimated species". New York Times. Archived from the original on 2012-03-16. Retrieved 2008-12-12.
Another carnivorous marsupial indigenous to Tasmania, the quoll has a white-dotted reddish to dark chocolate brown coat and is about the size of a small house cat.
- ↑ /deuterostoma/chordata/synapsida/metatheria/notometatheria/dasyuromorphia/dasyurinae.html