10 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



The serious depletion of the native fauna by these agencies is 

 supplemented by widespread bush fires, by conversion of a vast 

 acreage of wild land into crop or grazing lands, by the huge fur 

 trade, by epizootic disease, and by the large-scale use of poisoned 

 bait, which takes toll of many animals besides the pests against 

 which it is directed. 



Altogether, the situation in Australia has gotten largely beyond 

 human control. The rapidly growing list of extinct forms already 

 contains at least the following 11 : 



Freckled Marsupial Mouse (Antechinus apicalis) 



New South Wales Barred Bandicoot (Pemmeles jasciata) 



Western Barred Bandicoot (Perameles myosura myosura) 



Nalpa Bilby (Macrotis lagotis grandis) 



Leadbeater's Opossum (Gymnobelideus leadbeateri) 



Gaimard's Rat-kangaroo (Bettongia gaimardi) 



Gilbert's Rat-kangaroo (Potorous gilbertii) 



Broad-faced Rat-kangaroo (Potorous platyops) 



Parma Wallaby (Thylogale parma) 



Toolach Wallaby (Wallabia greyi) * 



White-tailed Rat (Zyzomys argurus argurus) 



Dr. W. K. Gregory, of the American Museum of Natural History, 

 says (1924, p. 11) : "Late in the eighteenth century, there arrived 

 in Australia by far the most destructive placental mammal the 

 world has ever seen, Homo sapiens, variety europaeus, who has 

 devastated the continent and is now completing the work of 

 destruction." 



MALAY ARCHIPELAGO 



Insular faunas are of extraordinary interest because of their 

 tendency toward endemism and because of the light they throw 

 upon geological history and evolutionary processes. At the same 

 time, by reason of the more or less strictly circumscribed nature of 

 their habitats, and by reason of a certain lack of adaptability or 

 self-defense, they are peculiarly vulnerable to attack and extermi- 

 nation by enemies of foreign origin. Thus the Malay Archipelago 

 commands the attention of the conservationist as well as of the 

 evolutionist. Incidentally, it was in this environment, in the fertile 

 mind of Alfred Russel Wallace, that one of the germs of the evolu- 

 tionary idea developed. 



So far this region, containing the richest insular faunas of the 

 entire world, has fared moderately or at least comparatively well, 

 having lost only three mammals, all from tiny Christmas Island, 

 lying some 200 miles off the south coast of Java. These are a shrew 

 (Crocidura fuliginosa trichura) and two species of indigenous rats 

 (Rattus macleari and R, nativitatis) , all of which have succumbed 



i A single captive remained alive in 1938 (Troughton, 1938, p. 407). 



