This species was afterwards splitted in 3 based on little evidence and subsequent research lumped them into 1 species again...
Anyone know what the current status is of the Cape York (Southern) Brown Bandicoot population? Subspecies, species, non of the above?
I've got it as a full species. Originally it was a (wildly-disjunct) population of Southern Brown, but genetically it is similar to Golden Bandicoot (which makes way more sense). It is probably best as a full species. Note the Northern Brown Bandicoot is there as well though, so you'd need to be sure of which one you'd seen.
I'm checking some Australian mammals at the Global Species-website to know what subspecies are kept. It's based on the 2011 version of ISIS (for who doesn't know what it is: the International Species Information System, a formerly free accessible online database with the collection of a lot of international zoos). Sure, it's outdated, but for some species I don't expect that much changes, so it's still quite interesting and useful. About bandicoots, Territory Wildlife Park apparantly has or had two subspecies of Northern Brown Bandicoot (Isoodon macrourus macrourus and I. m. moresbyensis). Adelaide didn't kept bandicoots in 2011, so no information on that case. The Brushtail of TWP is listed as Trichosurus arnhemensis. The Short-eared Rock Wallaby is listed without subspecies. According to the info of ISIS, I've seen three subspecies of Short-beaked Echidna: T. a. aculeatus at the eastern zoos (Adelaide, Melbourne, Taronga) and T. a. acanthion at the western/central zoos (Perth, Alice Springs, TWP), next to T. a. lawesii (in several European zoos).
The reason they would have moresbyensis listed is because there is a third named subspecies, I. m. torosus (the ones in Queensland), which is variously synonymised with either macrourus or with moresbyensis. So if combined with moresbyensis then that subspecies is found in both New Guinea and Queensland; if combined with macrourus then moresbyensis is restricted to New Guinea. So what TWP were "actually" listing there were the local macrourus (of the Northern Territory) and torosus (of Queensland, which they were combining with moresbyensis).
Anyone know what, if anything, came out of this: New species of Glider discovered in the Northern Territory I'm assuming not much since it's a couple years old?
Nothing at all, apparently. It's the first I'd heard of it, but I did some googling. There is no paper describing it published. Apart for a cluster of popular articles from 2015, the only continuing presence seems to be the Twitter account here: Savanna Glider (@savanna_glider) | Twitter
Looks like they have published a paper now: Link, Link According to them Sugar Glider is actually three (maybe four) species.
While the savanna glider has previously been flagged and is located in fairly remote regions, more significant perhaps for mammal watchers and zoo species lists is that the actual sugar glider now has a very restricted range, east of the Great Divide (quite a narrow strip in reality) from south-east Queensland to the New South Wales - Victorian border. Animals outside that area are now Krefft's glider. This means that the two largest cities in Australia, Sydney and Melbourne, now have different species of small glider. What this means for sugar gliders in New Guinea I don't know. Anyway I now have to go and change my list.
I didn't realise their "Savannah Glider" was the same animal as ariel - I thought it was supposed to be some unknown form. I can't read the new paper other than the abstract, so I don't know if they discuss the New Guinea animals, but in a 2009 paper (mentioned in the article linked above) - https://www.researchgate.net/public...pialia_Petauridae_in_Australia_and_New_Guinea - it covers that there are two divergent clades of P. breviceps in Australia apart for ariel (i.e. the P. breviceps and P. notatus of the new paper) and that there are five divergent clades in New Guinea which are entirely separate to the Australian clades. If anyone has access to the new paper, I'd be interested in hearing how good the case is for the new species. When I was in Australia last year I saw my first wild Sugar Gliders - in Sydney and in Brisbane, so handily they would represent two different species.
Sadly quite possibly not. Brisbane is in south-eastern Queensland, so that would be sugar glider territory or maybe an overlap region.
Aw nuts! I didn't realise Brisbane was that far south - it's almost inside NSW! And that's also right in the location samples for being the same species as the Sydney one. No armchair tick for me
I'm just going to drop this here as related to the above news, and for anyone who likes to keep track of their zoo lists: a genetic study published in 2019 found that all the Sugar Gliders in the USA pet trade (and hence all or most USA zoo animals, I'm guessing) appear to have originated from the Sorong region of western (Indonesian) New Guinea. So I guess you'll have to list them on your tick-lists as something like Petaurus "breviceps" NG for now. The origin of exotic pet sugar gliders (Petaurus breviceps) kept in the United States of America Sorong is in the range of the named subspecies papuanus, but as the genetic clades on the island do not match the distributions of the named subspecies that does not mean much (see the 2009 paper I linked earlier for a map).
I still haven't had the time to read the full thing (only excerpts), but there may or may not be two more splits. Because of the sample size they didn't include the Cape York animals and a possible distinct population from the central Kimberley. From a comment on mammalwatching: "Note that there is no nuclear DNA data and no data from supposed contact zones. I think it’s better to wait for those before accepting the split. MtDNA-based changes to taxonomy often prove to be misguided."
Yes, there are some further posts on the Marsupial Photographic Thread. The Cape York animals apparently fall genetically within P. agilis but are only a quarter the size so there's something weird going on there. They also mention a sample from the Darwin area which seem to fall within P. agilis. The animals from The Kimberley appear to be distinct genetically and occur alongside P. ariel but the samples were so few - and mostly obtained opportunistically - that they couldn't really say much more than that.
A paper has just come out on these splits. Previously the acceptance of three species (by e.g. HMW) was based on no proper evidence, but this is an actual genetic study. which the authors say confirms the three species. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but it is here: Genetic evidence supports three previously described species of greater glider, Petauroides volans , P. minor , and P. armillatus | Scientific Reports
