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Common Name: Marsupial Mouse

Scientific Name: Planigale maculata 
 

Kingdom: Animilia

Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Dasyuromorphia
Family: Dasyuridea
Genus: Planigale
Species: P. maculate

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You may think the term mouse means a regular house mouse, but you’re wrong with this Australian marsupial mouse.  The marsupial mouse is 13-19 cm long and is brown with white underneath the coat.

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There is an unknown population of marsupial mice; there are 40 species of marsupials and 3 species of marsupial mice.  It is not an endangered species and has a stable conservation status.

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The marsupial mouse has a diet of mostly bugs and insects, but will eat small mammals.  They eat at night when there is less competition with other small bug eating mammals. In Australia, their role in the food web is eating bugs, insects and small mammals.

The marsupial mouse can be found in Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea, in forests, marshlands, and grasslands.  They do very well in their environment, and live in long burrows in the ground.

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The marsupial mouse can be eaten by the superior marsupial rat, owls and other creatures.  It protects itself from predators by hiding in its burrow in the ground.

In the end, the marsupial mouse is no ordinary mouse with the ability to store fat in its tail and live in the desert.

 

Author: Joseph O. 

Published: 02/2012  

 

Sources:

Photo credit; http://science.jrank.org/pages/4150/Marsupial-Rats-Mice.html, 

Information credit:http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_do_marsupial_mouse_live animal.discovery.com

 

 

 

 

 

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