The black-tailed dusky antechinus and silver-headed antechinus were only discovered in 2013, and the tiny marsupials quickly became known for their sex lives, which well, to call it “rough” would be an understatement, considering the male generally dies immediately afterwards.
Now they are now officially endangered – but don’t blaming the rooting just yet.
There are 15 separate species of antechinus in Australia, and these two were first discovered by QUT’s Dr Andrew Baker and his team at South East Queensland. Dr Baker hopes the endangered listing provides greater protection for the black-tailed and silver-headed antechinus.
Because it’s not just, you, the coitus, causing the population decline. That’s right, you guessed it – our old pal global warming is helping them along, as well as habitat loss and feral animals.
“It is pretty rare to uncover new mammals in developed countries such as Australia. These two new species were discovered on misty mountain summits. They have likely retreated there as the climate has warmed, and there is now nowhere left for them to go,” Dr Baker said.
“Australia has the worst mammal extinction rate anywhere on earth. We must take action, so I am pleased the Australian Government has approved this listing and enshrined the protection of the antechinus, and a range of other species, in federal legislation.”
Dr Baker says we can now turn the country’s attention to the important job of saving these threatened species. If we take immediate action, hopefully in time we will see the antechinus removed from the endangered list, he says.
And then they can go back to fornicating themselves to death without the additional threat of climate change and feral cats and you know, nowhere to do the nooky.
Dr Baker has been working to locate the two species in new locations, using a detection dog. Yes, you read that right. This story just keeps getting better, huh?
“In our collaboration with Canines for Wildlife, last year a detection dog located the Black-tailed Dusky Antechinus in the Border Ranges where it hadn’t been seen since the late 1980s, despite more than a decade of trapping,” he said.
What a world we live in.