Mountain pygmy possum
The Bergbilchbeutler ( Burramys parvus ) is a Beutelsäugerart from the family of Bilchbeutler ( Burramyidae ). The way was long known only through fossils and was considered an extinct species before first time in 1966 living animals were found.
Description
Bergbilchbeutler are small, mouse-like marsupials. Her thick fur is gray brown, the underside is lighter. The long tail is hairless except for the tail and can be used as a prehensile tail. The animals reach a body length 10-13 cm, a tail length of 13-16 cm and a weight of 30 to 60 grams.
Distribution and habitat
Bergbilchbeutler live in the mountainous region in south-eastern New South Wales and eastern Victoria, for example, there in the Alpine National Park. Their habitat are bush -lined boulder fields at 1500 m to 1800 m above sea level. The climate in their small habitat is cold and rainy, snow is very common.
Lifestyle and food
That Bergbilchbeutler could remain undetected for so long, is partly due to their shy and exclusively nocturnal lifestyle. There are social animals, often living together outside the breeding season in groups. Mutual warming, if more animals huddled together sleeping in a crevice is likely to be necessary for survival in their cold habitat. The grooming has been observed.
During the winter months they always fall into a torpor, a hibernation, which can last up to 20 days.
Bergbilchbeutler are omnivores whose diet is partly due to seasonal factors. During the warmer months, they feed primarily on insects, especially moths of Bogong ( Agrotis infusa ) who visit the habitat of these animals to breed each year. In autumn and winter, they mainly take seeds and berries to be that they store in part as winter stock. Bergbilchbeutler are thus the only marsupials in which the application of a winter supply is known.
Reproduction
Female Bergbilchbeutler have a well-developed pouch with four teats. The mating behavior and rearing of young are adapted to the short summer of the southern Australian mountains. After a short, 13 - to 16- day gestation, come in spring (October or November), up to eight pups. That means more than newborn teats, so that only the faster, more developed boys can achieve a life-saving teat in the pouch, the other die. The young stay three to four weeks in the bag and spend another four to five weeks in the nest of the mother. During this time, the mother of all other animals, especially the males sells out of their nest and develops a territorial behavior. With about two months, the young are weaned and independent and have to leave the mother.
Bergbilchbeutler and people
End of the 19th century and in the 1950s were found in south-eastern Australia fossils that have been identified as related to the sleep marsupials already known animals. In August 1966, discovered in a ski hut in Victoria an unknown Beutelsäugerart, which was soon recognized as identical with the described fossils. In the words of Australian paleontologists WDL Ride: " The dream of every paleontologist became a reality. The dry bones of the fossil came together and were covered with tendons, muscles and skin. " (Quoted by Nowak, own translation ). As a result, we found many more of these animals and could study their behavior.
The problem is that the habitat of the Bergbilchbeutler located in an area that is developed since the 1950s intensively for winter tourism. Slopes cut their habitats, which are necessary for the nutrition trees are felled. After clashes between tourism operators and conservationists led to a number of safeguards, including Untertunnelungen of ski slopes, the establishment of protected areas and breeding in captivity. The distribution of Bergbilchbeutler comprises only about 10 km2, estimated to live only about 2600 of these animals, the IUCN lists it as threatened.