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Cladus: Eukaryota Name Caloprymnus campestris (Gould, 1843) Type locality: Australia, South Australia Vernacular names References The Desert Rat-kangaroo (Caloprymnus campestris), also called the Buff-nosed Rat-kangaroo or the Plains Rat-kangaroo, is an extinct marsupial that lived in a sandridge and gibber plain habitat in south-western Queensland and north-eastern Australia.[2] It was the size of a small rabbit. It showed great endurance while travelling at high speeds, and "paused only to die".[3] It sheltered in a flimsy nest by day. At night, it emerged to feed. It lived alone and was so independent of water that it even shunned the succulent plants of the sandhills. It was first recorded by Europeans around 1841 and was not seen again for 90 years. The rat kangaroos eats seed for their meal. Gould and Finlayson John Gould studied the Desert Rat-Kangaroo in 1843, but after the first sightings, Gould could not find more. Hedley Finlayson rediscovered the animal in 1931 and found a thriving colony of them. He made multiple returns, but in 1935, when he returned, the colony was gone. Cryptozoology Although it was never confirmed that the Desert Rat-kangaroo was extinct (because of the ninety year period when it wasn't seen and its amazing recovery), sightings of this animal cannot fall into the cryptozoology category References 1. ^ Australasian Mammal Assessment Workshop (2008). Caloprymnus campestris. In: IUCN 2008. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded on 29 December 2008. Database entry includes justification for why this species is listed as extinct Source: Wikispecies, Wikipedia: All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License |
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