DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALS 177 



marsupials, as did some of the bats. The dingo was brought 

 there by the early men who came near the end of the Pleisto- 

 cene period. The dingo, very much like the earliest known 

 domestic dogs, has no other near relatives in southeastern Asia. 



The Papuan Subregion lacks a number of the distinctively 

 Australian mammals. Of the archaic Australian fauna only 

 wallabies, tree kangaroos, phalangers or possums, flying pha- 

 langers, bandicoots, marsupial cats, marsupial mice, and the 

 spiny anteater are found there — a much less varied assemblage 

 than on the continent. Of these the cuscus phalangers alone 

 extend much beyond New Guinea. Of the bats, many are species 

 characteristic of this subregion, but more frequently they are 

 local forms of widely ranging bats, found in tropical Australia 

 as well as in the islands east and west. The rats are, with a 

 number of exceptions, closely related to Malaysian types, but 

 even the most peculiar are rat-like and belong in the same family. 

 The mammals which extend westward have been discussed under 

 the Australo-Oriental Subregion. Cuscus phalangers reach the 

 Solomon Islands, as do the giant and mosaic-tailed rats. Tube- 

 nosed fruit bats {Nyctimene) and spinal-winged bats {Dob- 

 sonia) are other Papuan forms that reach these islands. Several 

 genera of bats and rats, found only on the Solomons, are either 

 relicts of ancient types or local developments. 



Bandicoots and a spotted cuscus are found on the Admiral- 

 ties ; these with wallabies are the chief land mammals of the 

 Bismarck group. Water rats extend northeast to New Britain ; 

 they are also found on the Aru and Kei Islands to the west. 

 The other mammals of these last islands are much like those of 

 southern New Guinea, but less varied. 



New Guinea, the only large land mass of the Papuan Sub- 

 region, contains many more native species of mammals than the 

 outlying islands. The bandicoots include four genera, two of 

 them restricted to New Guinea and one chiefly Australian but 

 found in southern and southeastern Papua. Marsupial mice are 

 represented by several primitive forms, marsupial cats by a 



