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 : 217-218

(5) A. argentus versus A. adustus (Thomas)

Pelage: A. argentus has a silvery head and neck that merges to deep olive-buff fur on the rump and flanks; A. adustus has more uniformly dark brown fur with rusty tips on the head and back. A. argentus has pale olive-buff hind feet whereas A. adustus has dark grey feet.

External measurements: A. argentus is smaller than A. adustus in absolute measurement for two external body characters, as follows: tv and hf in females (see Table 4); these were only rendered non-significant because of small sample size in female A. argentus (n = 3).

Dentary: Antechinus argentus is smaller than A. adustus in absolute measurement for IBW, PPV and NWR in females and larger for BuL in males. A. argentus has one other dentary feature that significantly (p<0.05) differs from A. adustus —NWR in males (Table 4). A. argentus also tends to have smaller IOW and a wider skull level with the upper molars (larger R-LM 1, R-LM 2 and R-LM 3) than A. adustus .

Other Comments: A. argentus occurs in south-east Qld in Kroombit Tops NP, whereas A. adustus is known only from the wet tropics in north-east Qld. Genetics: uncorrected pairwise range differences at the mitochondrial gene CytB between A. argentus and A. adustus are 7.2–8.4%.