Musky Rat-kangaroo

About the Musky Rat-kangaroo

The musky rat-kangaroo (Hypsiprymnodon moschatus) is a small marsupial found only in the rainforests of northeastern Australia. First described in the later 19th century, the only other species are known from fossil specimens. They are similar in appearance to potoroos and bettongs, but are not as closely related. Their omnivorous diet is known to include materials such as fruit and fungi, as well as small animals such as insects and other invertebrates.

The description of this species, assigned to a new genus Hypsiprymnodon, was published in 1876 by Edward Pierson Ramsay, a curator at the Australian Museum. The syntypes are part of the museum's collection, mounted specimens of a male and female collected at Rockingham Bay, Queensland. Ramsay's specimens were obtained during European settlement of northeastern Australia on an expedition toward the Herbert River. A description of the species was provided by Richard Owen in the year after Ramsay's publication, the name Pleopus nudicaudatus, describing the five toes of the hind foot and its scaly, naked tail, is now regarded as a synonym. Ramsay had provisionally assigned the species to the genus Hypsiprymnus, but in his... Wikipedia →