Species Leporillus conditor (Sturt, 1848)

Museums

Regional Maps

External Links

• Mus conditor Sturt, C. 1848. Narrative of an Expedition in Central Australia, Performed under the Authority of Her Majesty's Government, During the Year 1844, 5, and 6. Together with a notice of the Province of South Australia, in 1847. London : T. & W. Boone Vol. 1 x, iv pp. 5-416, 8 pls, Vol.2 vi 308 + 92 pp. 8 pls. [Pl. opp. p. 120, p. 121 (Vol. 1)] [see also Appendix, pp. 4, 7–8 (Vol. 2)].

  Type data:

   Syntype(s) whereabouts unknown, Polia area (as about 45 miles from Laidley Ponds), NSW, N and NW to latitude 30ºS in NSW and SA.
• Leporillus jonesi Thomas, O. 1921. On three new Australian rats. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 9 8: 618-622 [618].

  Type data:

   Holotype BMNH 21.7.3.2 ♀ skin & skull, hut on northern side of western island, Franklin Islands, Nuyt's Archipelago, SA.

  Type locality references:

  Jones, F.W. 1922. The flora and fauna of Nuyt's Archipelago and the Investigator Group. No. 2.—The monodelphian mammals. Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of South Australia 46: 181-193 [181-182].

 

Taxonomic Decision for Synonymy

• Mahoney, J.A. in Walton, D.W. (ed.) 1988. Zoological Catalogue of Australia Volume 5. Mammalia. Canberra : Australian Government Publishing Service x 274 pp. [Date published 13/Apr/1988]

 

Generic Combinations

• Leporillus conditor (Sturt, 1848).

 

Distribution

States

New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia

Extra Distribution Information

Extant on Frankin Is., SA, possibly extinct elsewhere.

IBRA and IMCRA regions

IBRA

NSW, SA, Vic, WA: Broken Hill Complex (BHC), Coolgardie (COO), Eyre Yorke Block (EYB), Flinders Lofty Block (FLB), Gawler (GAW), Geraldton Sandplains (GS), Great Victoria Desert (GVD), Hampton (HAM), Kanmantoo (KAN), Murray Darling Depression (MDD), Murchison (MUR), Nullarbor (NUL), Simpson Strzelecki Dunefields (SSD), Stony Plains (STP), Yalgoo (YAL)

Ecological Descriptors

Folivore, low shrubland, noctidiurnal, terrestrial.

Extra Ecological Information

Constructs large nests of sticks.

 

General References

Aslin, H.J. 1972. Nest-building of Leporillus conditor in captivity. South Australian Naturalist 47: 43-46

Baverstock, P.R., Watts, C.H.S., Adams, M. & Cole, S.R. 1981. Genetical relationships among Australian rodents (Muridae). Australian Journal of Zoology 29: 289-303

Baverstock, P.R., Watts, C.H.S. & Hogarth, J.T. 1977. Chromosome evolution in Australian rodents I. The Pseudomyinae, the Hydromyinae and the Uromys/Melomys Group. Chromosoma (Berlin) 61: 95-125

Breed, W.J. & Sarafis, V. 1979. On the phylogenetic significance of spermatozoal morphology and male reproductive tract anatomy in Australian rodents. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 103: 127-135

Copley, P. 1988. The stick-nest rats of Australia. A final report to World Wildlife Fund (Australia). Department of Environment and Planning: Adelaide. 277 pp.

Copley, P. 1999. Natural histories of Australia's stick-nest rats, genus Leporillus (Rodentia: Muridae). Wildlife Research 26: 513-539

Head, L. 1993. Stick-nest rat (Leporillus spp) nests as sources of arid and semi-arid zone palaeoclimatic data: review and prospects. Quaternary Australasia 11: 38-42

Lee, A.K. 1995. The Action Plan for Australian Rodents. Canberra : Australian Nature Conservation Agency 62 pp.

Mahoney, J.A. 1982. Identities of the rodents (Muridae) listed in T.L. Mitchell's 'Three expeditions into the interior of Eastern Australia, with descriptions of the recently explored region of Australia Felix, and of the present colony of New South Wales' (1st ed., 1838; 2nd ed., 1839). Australian Mammalogy 5: 15-36

McCarthy, L., Head, L. & Quade, J. 1996. Holocene palaeoecology of the Northern Flinders Ranges, South Australia. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 123: 205-218

Nelson, D.J., Webb, R.H. & Long, P. 1990. Analysis of stick-nest rat (Leporillus: Muridae) middens from central Australia. pp. 428-434 in Betancourt, J.L., van Devender, T.R. & Martin, P.S. (eds). Packrat middens. The last 40,000 years of bionic change. Tucson : University of Arizona Press.

Pedler, L. & Copley, P.B. 1993. New Introduction of Stick-nest Rats to Reevesby Island, South Australia. WWF Project No. 175. Adelaide : Biological Conservation Branch, Department of Environment and Land Management.

Robinson, A.C. 1975. The stick-nest rat, Leporillus conditor on Franklin Island, Nuyts Archipelago, South Australia. Australian Mammalogy 1: 319-327

Robinson, A.C. 1995. Greater Stick-nest Rat Leporillus conditor. pp. 560-561 in Strahan, R. (ed.). The Mammals of Australia: The National Photographic Index of Australian Wildlife. Sydney : Reed New Holland 756 pp.

Ryan, S.A., Moseby, K.E. & Paton, D.C. 2003. Comparative foraging preferences of the greater stick-nest rat Leporillus conditor and the European Rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus: implications for regeneration of arid lands. Australian Mammalogy 25: 135-146

Watts, C.H.S. 1982. Australian hydromyine rodents: maintenance of captive colonies. pp. 180-184 in Evans, D.D. (ed.). The Management of Australian Mammals in Captivity. Proceedings of the Scientific Meeting of the Australian Mammal Society, Healesville, Victoria, February 1979. Melbourne : Zoological Board of Victoria 194 pp.

Watts, C.H.S. & Aslin, H.J. 1981. The Rodents of Australia. Sydney : Angus & Robertson xii 321 pp. 16 pls.

 

Common Name References

ABRS 2001. Census of Australian Vertebrates. Australian Biological Resources Study. (Greater Stick-nest Rat)

 

History of changes

Published	As part of group	Action Date	Action Type	Compiler(s)
04-Feb-2023		10-Dec-2010	MOVED
10-Dec-2010		03-Dec-2010	MODIFIED
		12-Feb-2010	(import)