Desert Bandicoot

Desert bandicoot: Mulgaruquirra and Iwurra in Central Australia

The Indigenous people of Australia living in the area of the city of Alice Springs called the desert bandicoot Mulgaruquirra, and among the Aborigines in the Charlotte Waters area the marsupial was called Iwurra. They knew the animal long before the British-Australian evolutionary biologist Baldwin Spencer scientifically described the species in 1897 under the name P. erameles eremiana.

Spencer’s first description is based on a specimen he received from a European correspondent who had settled in Alice Springs. Spencer designated as the type locality “Burt Plain north of Alice Springs and the sand dunes about 40 miles northeast of Charlotte Waters”. Both are in Central Australia.

The species status of the desert bandicoot is disputed. L. Freedman, in Skull and Tooth Variation of the Genus Perameles (1967), considers the desert bandicoot and the still extant western barred bandicoot (Perameles bougainville) to be the same species. He suspects that a cline with different forms developed, since both bandicoots (Perameles) look very similar but nevertheless show differences.

For a study (2012), evolutionary biologist Michael Westerman investigated the phylogenetic relationships of extant and extinct bandicoots based on mitochondrial DNA. A close relationship between the desert bandicoot and the western barred bandicoot was confirmed, but Westerman prefers to regard them as distinct species.

Desert bandicoot – fact sheet

alternative names	Orange-backed bandicoot, Iwurra, Mulgaruquirra, Waliya
scientific name	Perameles eremiana
original range	Australia (Central Australia)
time of extinction	between 1943 and the 1960s
causes of extinction	introduced animals, habitat loss
IUCN status	extinct

A bandicoot adapted to desert life

The desert bandicoot can most readily be distinguished from the western barred bandicoot by the reddish-orange coloring on its flanks, face and rump. In general, bandicoots have relatively short tails, but this was not true of the desert bandicoot. Its tail, tapering to a point at the end, reached a length of 7.7 to 13.5 centimeters. Its relative, the western barred bandicoot, has grayer fur, and its tail was at most ten centimeters long.

Unlike the western barred bandicoot, the desert bandicoot also had hair on the undersides of its feet as well as longer and more pointed ears. It can be assumed that this served as an adaptation to its dry habitat in the stony and sandy dunes or sandplains and the grasslands of Central Australia.

Almost nothing is known about its way of life, but it probably resembled that of other bandicoots. According to reports, desert bandicoots fed on ants (especially honeypot ants), beetles, larvae and termites. They were probably omnivores, like other bandicoots.

The nocturnal animals spent the day in a grass-lined nest in a hollow in the ground or a short burrow under hummock grass or shrubs.

Desert bandicoot: extinct by the 1960s at the latest

When Spencer described the newly discovered bandicoot species in 1897, the animals appeared to be common in the southeast of the state of South Australia, in central Western Australia and in the Northern Territory up to the Tanami Desert—at least into the 1930s.

In 1988, biologist Andrew Burbridge interviewed Aborigines about mammals occurring in the deserts of Central Australia. This also included the desert bandicoot: Western Desert Aborigines state that the species disappeared between 1940 and 1960. The Pintupi, however, who lived near Lake Mackey, a dried-up salt lake in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, claim to have still eaten desert bandicoots in the 1960s.

They also report having hunted the animals in the same way as the golden bandicoot (Isoodon auratus), which occurs in the same range. The Indigenous population hunted the marsupials by blocking the entrance to the nest with one foot and catching the animal by hand.

The last certain record of the desert bandicoot dates from 1943. A single animal was collected in Western Australia. This record and the memories of the Pintupi suggest that the desert bandicoot died out sometime between 1943 and the 1960s.

Reasons for the species’ disappearance unclear

Why the desert bandicoots disappeared is not entirely clear. Perhaps it has to do with the fire regime. Aborigines have always used fire in the landscape for hunting, in order to encourage the growth of green forage for game or to keep corridors open.

After the Indigenous population was forced to leave the Central Australian desert region, intense bushfires caused by lightning replaced the gradually created fire mosaic of the Indigenous peoples. These uncontrollable bushfires caused the loss of biodiversity.

The introduction of the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) to Australia may also have caused the extinction. Since the 1830s, settlers repeatedly brought these animals to the continent. The rapidly spreading red fox is considered one of the invasive species that causes the greatest ecological damage there.

Red foxes are also the main reason for declining population numbers in rat-kangaroos (Potoroidae). The desert rat-kangaroo is already extinct. Introduced predators are also responsible for the disappearance of the butterfly bandicoot.

In a study (2006), biologist Ian Abbott examined the causes of mammal extinctions in Western Australia between 1875 and 1925. He looked for the trigger that, during this period, caused the distribution and abundance of about one third of the fauna in Western Australia (33 species) to change fundamentally. There is evidence of a possibly introduced disease or epidemic among the mammals. Abbott also assumes that the desert bandicoot may have been affected because it lacked immunity.

The IUCN also explains the population decline of desert bandicoots with introduced predators such as foxes or cats. In addition to the changing fire regime, the International Union for Conservation of Nature also mentions rabbits, which probably had a major influence on the habitat of desert bandicoots.

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