Leporillus Thomas 1906

Leporillus Thomas 1906, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 7, 17: 83.

Type Species: Hapalotis apicalis Gould 1853

Species and subspecies: 2 species:

Species Leporillus apicalis (Gould 1853)

Species Leporillus conditor (Sturt 1848)

Discussion: Pseudomys Division. Member of the Australian Old Endemics (Musser, 1981 c:167), which includes the Conilurini where Baverstock (1984) listed Leporillus . Conilurines, however, are currently treated as part of a larger clade, the Hydromyini, which also includes members we place in the Hydromys, Xeromys, Pseudomys, and Uromys Divisions (the "Australasian clade" of Watts and Baverstock, 1994 a, 1995 b, 1996). Mahoney and Richardson (1988) cataloged taxonomic, distributional, and biological references. Species of Leporillus are the ecological and superficially morphological counterparts of North American woodrats ( Neotoma). Australian researchers are now surveying stick-rat middens and gathering megafossils and pollen to use in assessing environmental history and human impact in Australian deserts, just as North American woodrat middens have been studied for the same reason (Pearson, 1999; Pearson and Dodson, 1993). Pearson et al. (2001) extracted hair, teeth, and bone from middens of L. apicalis and L. conditor to determine former distribution and community composition of mammal and nonmammal species in arid Australia, some of which are no longer present in the areas where middens are currently found. Earliest record of Leporillus comes from late Pliocene sediments (see review in Aplin, 2004).