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https://theconversation.com/we-set-10-000-traps-in-search-of-a-rare-native-mouse-heres-what-we-found-287764>
"It’s 5am when we crawl out of our tents.
The catbirds are calling and the night sky is fading to dawn, as we prepare to
head into the bush. We’re surrounded by the towering eucalypts of southeast
Queensland in search of a small, native mouse called the pookila.
Also known as the New Holland mouse (
Pseudomys novaehollandiae), the pookila
is about the size of a small chocolate bar, weighing less than 20 grams. These
mice spend their nights foraging for seeds and fungi, and their days tucked
away in a burrow.
We don’t yet understand what the pookila’s preferred habitat is in Queensland.
But these mice can be found in patches along the east coast of Australia, from
Queensland down to New South Wales, Victoria and Flinders Island in Tasmania.
However, this little mouse is under the pressures of habitat destruction,
climate change and predators, among others. These threats have lead to declines
and local extinctions in southern pookila populations.
In the past, pookila have been found incidentally at ten locations in southeast
Queensland. But these surveys, many of which were conducted several years ago,
weren’t solely focused on searching for pookila.
For our new study, we visited most of these sites over a 31-month period to
better understand how pookila are living and what threats they are facing.
Here’s what we found."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
