A new review of a study conducted between 2004 and 2011 has found ground-breaking evidence that two animals photographed in December 2006 are now believed to be little pygmy possums, currently only known to exist in Tasmania, western Victoria, south-east SA, and Kangaroo Island.<\/p>\n
There are no historical records to suggest the species inhabited Yorke Peninsula, but new evidence published in the Australian Zoologist and based on a recent review of photographs taken during trapping surveys, showed they may exist in the Dhilba Guuranda\u2013Innes National Park \u2014 200 kilometres west of Kangaroo Island.<\/p>\n
Lead author of the study Dr Sophie Petit said the discovery was \u201ca big surprise\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne day we discovered these very strange pygmy possums that looked a bit different, so different we now believe they were little pygmy possums,\u201d Petit said.<\/p>\n
The team believes they had incorrectly labelled the possums as juvenile western pygmy possums because they hadn\u2019t expected to discover a new species on the Yorke Peninsula.<\/p>\n
\u201cRecently, when I looked at the photos again, I said \u2018no, that is definitely not a western pygmy possum\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite their similarities, Petit said there were key defining features that set the two possums apart.<\/p>\n
The little pygmy possum is the smallest possum to exist, weighing between seven and 10 grams, and the western pygmy possum was slightly heavier at an average of 13-14 grams.<\/p>\n
Different coloured fur was also a key indicator, with the little pygmy possum having grey ventral fur and the western pygmy possum white ventral fur.<\/p>\n
Dr Petit believed populations of the species could still be inhabiting the southern end of Yorke Peninsula where there is still natural vegetation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am concerned of course, because they were very rare at the time and a lot of time has elapsed since,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
If verified, the Yorke Peninsula population would represent a previously undiscovered relict population potentially isolated for thousands of years due to rising sea levels that separated Kangaroo Island from the mainland.<\/p>\n
The study raised concerns about the impacts of habitat fragmentation and prescribed burns which have frequented the Dhilba Guuranda\u2013Innes National Park area.<\/p>\n
Petit has recommended that prescribed burns in the area be reassessed due to the little pygmy possums sensitivity to vegetation disturbance.<\/p>\n
She also sent recommendations to a current restoration project, Marna Banggara, that aims to return locally extinct species to the southern Yorke Peninsula.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have given all the information to the national parks and I\u2019m hoping that they can get some funding together to do a targeted survey as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new review of a study conducted between 2004 and 2011 has found ground-breaking evidence that two animals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":["post-483958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}