Pseudomys australis Gray 1832

Pseudomys australis Gray 1832, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1832: 39.

Type Locality: Australia, New South Wales, SW side of Liverpool Plains; see Mahoney and Richardson (1988:172).

Vernacular Names: Plains Pseudomys.

Synonyms: Pseudomys auritus Thomas 1910; Pseudomys flavescens Troughton 1936; Pseudomys lineolatus (Gould 1845); Pseudomys minnie Troughton 1932; Pseudomys murinus (Gould 1845); Pseudomys stirtoni (Martinez and Lidicker 1971) .

Distribution: Australia; New South Wales, S Queensland, South Australia, and S Northern Territory; late Pleistocene to Recent remains from W Victoria (Breed and Head, 1991; Robinson et al., 2000; Watts and Aslin, 1981; Williams and Menkhorst, 1995 b); probably extinct in New South Wales (Mahoney and Richardson, 1988:172), where the species has not been found alive for more than 100 years (Ellis, 1995); present range summarized by Watts (1995 e).

Conservation: IUCN – Vulnerable.

Discussion: Microscopic structure of hooks on sperm head reported by Flaherty and Breed (1982), and protein composition of ventral processes on the sperm head and its significance documented by Breed et al. (2000). Phallic information suggested P. australis is related to P. gouldii, P. higginsi, and P. nanus, to the exclusion of other species of Pseudomys (Lidicker and Brylski, 1987:635); electrophoretic data (Baverstock et al., 1981) and spermatozoal morphology (Breed, 1983) concordant with this association. Reviewed by Watts and Aslin (1981) and Watts (1995 e). Comparative ecology of two populations in N South Australia is reported by Brandle and Moseby (1999), and distribution, ecology, and conservation status are documented by Brandle et al. (1999).