Antechinus argentus, Baker, Mutton & Hines, 2013

Baker, Andrew M, Mutton, Thomas Y & Hines, Harry B, 2013, A new dasyurid marsupial from Kroombit Tops, south-east Queensland, Australia: the Silver-headed Antechinus, Antechinus argentus sp. nov. (Marsupialia: Dasyuridae), Zootaxa 3746 (2), pp. 201-239 : 219

(10) A. argentus versus A. godmani (Thomas)

Pelage: A. argentus has a silvery head and neck that merges subtly to deep olive-buff on the rump and flanks, whereas A. godmani is more uniformly brown on the head and back with orange toned cheeks. A. argentus has a prominent pale, slightly broken eye ring; there is usually no evidence of an eye ring in A. godmani .

External measurements: A. argentus is smaller than A. godmani in absolute measurement for four external body characters in both males and females: wt, hb, tv and hf (see Table 4); A. argentus is smaller than A. godmani in absolute measurement for a further external body character in females only: e.

Dentary: Antechinus argentus is smaller than A. godmani in absolute measurement for a range of dentary characters for males and females, as follows: BL, Dent, IBW, IOW, IPV, M 2 W, OBW, PPV, R-LM 1 T, ZW, HT, PL, TC, UML, HT-B, I 1 -P 3, LML, I 1 -P 3, M 2 W and UPL. Antechinus argentus is smaller than A. godmani in absolute measurement for a further range of dentary characters in females only, as follows: R-LC 1, SWR-LC 1 B and PML (see Table 4).

Other Comments: A. argentus occurs in south-east Qld at Kroombit Tops NP, whereas A. godmani is known from only the wet tropics in north-east Qld. Genetics: uncorrected pairwise range differences at the mitochondrial gene CytB between A. argentus and A. godmani are 13.6–14.9%.