Endangered
Northern bettong
Bettongia tropica
The northern bettong is a small, endangered, gerbil-sized mammal native to forests in northeast Australia.
The mammal
Northern bettong is a mammal in the family Potoroidae (order Diprotodontia) — Bettongia tropica.
Range and habitat
The northern bettong is restricted to some areas of mixed open Eucalyptus woodlands and Allocasuarina forests bordering rainforests in far northeastern Queensland, Australia. The northern bettong is a small, endangered, gerbil-sized mammal native to forests in northeast Australia. The northern bettong is threatened by habitat loss, and is now restricted to a few small areas.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
It spends the day in a well concealed nest constructed beneath a tree, within a clump of grass or in other litter collected at ground level. Ectomycorrhizal fungal sporocarps are the staple diet of the northern bettong.
Other foods in the diet include grass roots and tubers, lilies, herbs, and sedges.
In crisis
A member of the rat-kangaroo family (Potoroidae), it moves by hopping and lives in burrows, feeding at night on roots and fungi. The northern bettong is listed as a threatened species. It is estimated that there are only 1000 left in the wild with only two known populations in the Mareeba region of the Atherton Tablelands (Davies Creek, Emu Creek and Tinaroo Creek).
The most significant threat to the northern bettong is habitat loss caused by land clearing for agriculture. A Recovery Team among them government agencies, scientists, traditional owners and volunteer groups are focusing conservation efforts are focusing on improving habitat.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Northern bettong is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Northern bettong, Wikidata item Q209775. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
