Antechinus bellus (Thomas, 1904)

Dyck, Steve Van, 2013, Taxonomy and redescription of the Fawn Antechinus, Antechinus bellus (Thomas) (Marsupialia: Dasyuridae), Zootaxa 3613 (3), pp. 201-228 : 218

(11) A. bellus versus A. agilis

Pelage: Antechinus bellus is a strikingly pale animal: pale to medium grey above, sometimes with a faun tinge, whereas A. agilis is a uniform medium grey to greyish brown from head to rump.

External measurements: Antechinus bellus is larger than A. agilis in absolute measurement (i.e., with no overlap in ranges) for ear length in males and females. Moreover, A. bellus is significantly larger than A. agilis in head-body length and hindfoot length for both males and females, and tail-vent length for males (Table 2).

Dentary: Antechinus bellus differs from A. agilis in absolute measurement (i.e., with no overlap in ranges) for the following 19 skull/dentary characters for males: BL, Dent, IOW, IPV, M 2 W, OBW, R-LC 1, R-LM 1, R-LM 1 T, R- LM 2, R-LM 3, ZW, HT, PL, SWR-LC 1 B, UML, BuL, LML and M 2 W and the following 19 skull/dentary characters for females: BL, Dent, IOW, IPV, M 2 W, NW, OBW, R-LC 1, R-LM 1, R-LM 2, HT, PL, SWR-LC 1 B, UML, HT-B, BuL, LML, I 1 -P 3, and M 2 W. Moreover, A. bellus has a range of other dentary features that significantly (p<0.01) differ from A. agilis – 6 variables for males and 3 variables for females, as shown in Table 2.

Other comments: Antechinus bellus is found in savannah woodlands of the Top End, Northern Territory, whereas A. agilis is found in coastal south-eastern Australia ranging in latitude from coastal Victoria to about Sydney in NSW ( Dickman et al. 1998). A. bellus females have 10 nipples in the pouch, whereas A. agilis females have 6–10 nipples in the pouch. A. bellus possesses a distally thickened and twisted supratragus of the ear rather than the simple, uncurled structure found in A. agilis . Genetics: uncorrected pairwise range differences at the mitochondrial gene Cytochrome B (CytB) between A. bellus and A. agilis are 12.2–12.5%.