Notomys longicaudatus Gould 1844

Notomys longicaudatus Gould 1844, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1844: 104.

Type Locality: Australia, Western Australia, Moore River (as restricted by Thomas’s lectotype designation; see Mahoney and Richardson, 1988:168).

Vernacular Names: Long-tailed Hopping Mouse.

Synonyms: Notomys sturti Thomas 1921 .

Distribution: Australia: Western Australia and Northern Territory (Watts and Aslin, 1981:107; Dixon, 1995 c:577); extinct but recorded as subfossils from South Australia (Robinson et al., 2000). "Given the wide range of locations that live animals were collected from, and the increasing number of locations where its remains have been found, this species must have once occupied much of the arid and semi-arid zones of western and central Australia." (Ellis, 1995:40).

Conservation: IUCN – Extinct.

Discussion: No living animals have either been seen or trapped since 1901, and the species is apparently extinct (Watts and Aslin, 1981). Dixon (1995 c:578) noted that "Once widespread throughout arid and semiarid country where the vegetation included acacia and eucalypt woodlands, hummock grassland and low shrubland, the Long-tailed Hopping-mouse is now unknown and possibly extinct." Male reproductive anatomy and spermatozoal morphology described by Breed (1990).