Macrotis

Greater bilby ( Macrotis lagotis )

The bilby ( macrotis) are a genus of marsupial order of the bandicoot ( Peramelemorphia ). They are now classified as a separate family Thylacomyidae. There are two types: the Great bilby ( lagotis macrotis ) and the extinct little bilby (M. leucura ). In English, these animals Bilbies hot.

Features

Bilby, like all bandicoots stocky built animals with elongated snout. They reach a body length of 20 to 55 centimeters, the tail measures 12 to 29 centimeters. With 0.3 to 0.4 kg of Small bilby was significantly lighter than its larger relative, which brings up to 2.5 kilograms. The fur of these animals is long, soft and silky, it is gray-brown to blue-gray on top and white on the bottom. The tail bears at the end of a small, white tassel. The head is characterized by the pointed snout and large, finely hairy ears. The dental formula is I4 - 5/3 C1 / 1 P4 / 4 M3 / 3, for a total they have 46 to 48 teeth. The powerful front legs are adapted to digging, they wear five toes, the first and fifth are degenerated. The big three middle toes are provided with claws. The hind legs are long and kangaroo similar and serve the ends hoppel locomotion. The first toe of the hind legs is absent, the second and third toe are grown together.

Distribution and habitat

Once the bilby occurred in many parts of Australia and lived in different habitats such as forests, savannas, bush country and deserts. Today, they are displaced into the dry regions and still live only in isolated areas in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland.

Way of life

Bilby are nocturnal and sleep during the day in self-dug Building. At night, they go looking for food, which they dig their food out of the ground. They feed primarily on insects and their larvae and other small animals, sometimes they also take underground plant parts such as roots and tubers to himself.

The gestation period is one of the shortest of all mammals at around 14 days. The hatchlings spend the first 80 days solely in its mother's pouch, then they still keep on in their construction. The well-known maximum age of a rabbit's nose Beutler was seven years.

Bilby and people

To a lesser extent, the bilby were at risk even before European settlement. The Australian aborigines appreciated their meat a delicacy and her brush tail served as jewelry. With the arrival of Europeans, the threats have intensified. Beginning of the 20th century began a dramatic decline in the populations of both species. The reasons for this lay in the hunting for their silky fur, in the enactment by introduced red foxes and domestic cats in the displacement by the similarly entrained wild rabbits and in the destruction of their habitat by conversion to pasture or other agricultural areas.

The Great Rabbit Beutler is forced back into remote, sparsely populated regions and, according to IUCN " Endangered" ( vulnerable ). It run captive breeding and re- resettlement programs. There are efforts to offer bilby chocolate ( " Easter Bilbies " ) than native alternative to the Easter Bunny, the income will be partly used for measures to protect the species. The little bilby extinct. The last sighting was in 1931, in remote regions he might have held up in the 1960s.

System

Previously, the bilby were classified in the Australian bandicoots ( Peramelidae ). Recent studies have shown that these are more closely related to the New Guinea bandicoots than with the rabbit bandicoots. That's why today they are led into a family, Thylacomyidae. ( Thylacomys is an invalid generic name for macrotis. ) They are the sister group of the common taxon from Australian and New Guinea bandicoots.