Phascogale

The phascogales, also known as wambengers or mousesacks, are carnivorous Australian marsupials of the family Dasyuridae. There are three species: the brush-tailed phascogale, the red-tailed phascogale, and the northern brush-tailed phascogale. As with a number of dasyurid species, the males live for only one year, dying after a period of frenzied mating. The name wambenger comes from the Nyungar language. The term Phascogale was coined in 1824 by Coenraad Jacob Temminck in reference to the brush-tailed phascogale, and means "pouched weasel". All three species are listed as either Near Threatened or Vulnerable by the IUCN.

Phascogale

Greg Tasney · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
phascogalePBDB
Sits inside
PhascogalinaePBDB
Diet
insectivore, carnivorePBDB, for Dasyuridae
Life habit
arborealPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia

Time the record covers

At least 645 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 774 ka to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 0 of 20 occurrencesPleistocene — about 20 of 20 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 20 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.2–2.1 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.1–2.0 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.0–1.8 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.0–924 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences924 ka–821 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences821 ka–719 ka Mya — about 0.8 occurrences719 ka–616 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence616 ka–513 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence513 ka–411 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence411 ka–308 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence308 ka–205 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence205 ka–103 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences103 ka–0 Mya — about 4 occurrences774 ka129 ka3.08 Mya0 Mya

20 occurrences of Phascogale on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

20 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Phascogale and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Phascogale and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

203 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 17 sites for Phascogale, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

12 references

Each of the 20 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Phascogale

Credit
Greg Tasney
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Phascogale was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itPhascogalinae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Temminck 1824