Week 4 - Monotremes Flashcards
What are the sub-classes of mammals?
3 sub-classes of mammals
- Prototheria (Monotremes)
- Metatheria (Marsupials)
- Eutheria (Placentals)
What does Endemism mean?
Native animals
found nowhere else in the world
83% marsupials
eutherians
Why do we have so many animals only here in australia
isolated from the rest of the world - experienced different climate.
- Australia was part of Gondwana
- > 45 MY geographic isolation
- Unique climate and geology
- Isolated from global climate change
- Increasingly arid climate - arid spp
- Wet monsoon belt - tropical spp
- ~5.3 MYA- collision with Asia collid with asian mass…caused wave of animals to travel in from asian areas hence sharing animals with PNG
Where did out mammals come from and where did they originate from?
160 MYA: Gondwana= Australia + South America + Antarctica
110 MYA: Australia had monotremes but no marsupials
110 MY: Earliest known fossil marsupial Kokopellia wasound in Utah (n. hemisphere)
theory - spread from north america, to south america to australia
Did marsupials spread to S America and Gondwana ?
55 MY: first fossil marsupial in Australia
55 MY first fossil eutherian in Australia
What was the oldest australian eutherian?
Condylarth (Tingamarra porterorum) this ancient
group includes ancestors to
dogs, cats, horses & whales
What are the two theories for the dying out of the Australian megafauna? and how did giantism occur.
isolation often lead to animals being able to increase largely in size. There are two theories as to why they died out;
extreme climates at the time - resource availability was limited or human civilization increased
What makes a mammal?
characteristics
hair, produce milk to feed young, high body temperature to (endothermic), maintain hemostasis
large brains
3 middle ear bones
single jaw bone
Convergent evolution within mammals
Between Australian marsupials & northern hemisphere eutherians
Physical similarities
Behavioural similarities
Occupy similar ecological niche
example (koala and sloth)
What is the Monotremata taxonomy?
Class: Mammalia
subclass: Prototheria
Order: Monotremata (single hole = cloaca)
Family: Ornithorhynchidae (platypus) or Tachyglossidae (echidnas)
What are the mammalian and monotremata features of subclass Prototheria, order Monotremata?
4 spp echidnas, platypus
Mammals:
* Endothermic
* Hair
* Produce milk
* Single lower jaw bone
* 3 middle-ear bones
4 spp echidnas, platypus
Monotremata: one hole (cloaca)
* Oviparous: soft-shelled eggs
* Milk pores on abdomen
* Venom - possession preventive state
* Electroreception - hunt through the preception and electro fields
* Reptile-like gait - move
* Edentate - don’t have teeth`
What are so features about the platypus?
Platypus
Ornithorhynchus anatinus
‘bird-snout, duck-like’
* semi-aquatic
* endemic to freshwater creeks
& rivers (1 – 7 km home range) - territorial
* hunts with electricity (electroreception)
* walks like a lizard
* fights with venom
What are facts about platypus?
Platypus facts
* 40 – 55 cm, 0.7 – 2.4 kg
* 6 – 15 year lifespan
* Dense fur
* Dense bones provide ballast
* Sensitive bill - flat and pliable, mechanoreceptors
* Edentate (deciduous milk teeth in juveniles )
* Tail stores fat - for times when food is less available or mothers incubating within burrows
* Webbing between toes, long claws - paddles, they tuck and fold claws under
* can knuckle walk, swim & burrow - larger claws
* Adult males have sharp venomous spurs (12 mm) linked to crural/femoral gland: seasonally active. Only animals in the world with this trait. Sexually dimophism.
What is crepuscular ?
feeding at dawn and dusk
How to platypus feed?
Feeding
* Usually crepuscular, nocturnal and cryptic
* Close eyes and ears underwater
* 10 min dives, bradycardia - using less oxygen during the dive
* Soft, pliable, sensitive bill: electroreception
* detect electrical fields generated by
muscular contractions of prey
(worms and crayfish)
* determine direction of prey by signal
strengths of receptors - swing head side-to-side
Sift prey from sediment using bill (touch receptors)
* Cheek pouches
* Chew at surface
* Adults are edentate, horny grinding plates in mouth
What are mating season characteristics factors for platypus?
Reproduction 1
* Breed June to Oct
* Mostly solitary and territorial
* No social groupings - only during mating season
* Males fight over females in mating season, spurs are weapons
* Mate in water -
* Females dig burrows - high dry above the water level.
What are factors about the reproduction of female platypus?
Oviparous
* 28 days gestation
* Lay 1-3 eggs in burrow, female curls tail around eggs
* 10 days incubation until egg hatches
* Lactation for 3 – 4 mo: mammary glands are very extensive with pores,
no nipples: milk is ‘sweated out’ - modified sweat glands and young lap it off fur
Where are the platypus found?
stretch from cook town to eastern coast of australia, tasmania and south australia. Mostly associated with permanent water way - need to eat aquatic vertebrates.
Changes in platypus distribution? and why is it occuring?
Historical data suggests:
Decline in distribution & abundance
41% of sub-catchments have no
sightings for last 10 y
Near threatened status (2016)
- Historical fur trade
- Degradation of waterways - loss of water ways, agriculture practices, redirecting water flow
- Pollution, fishing nets
- Foxes, cats
- Drought, climate change - increasing severity. they need refuge pools. need stable embankments, stability (vegetation, logs)
How do they survey for platypus?
- Concentric rings on surface - dive
- Bubble trail - underwater
- Bow-wave – surface swim
- Burrow entrances ~10–15 cm diam, usually above
waterline in vegetation - Well-worn slide marks from burrow into water
- Characteristic footprints
- eDNA (new survey tool)
What are characteristics about Short-beaked echidna?
‘swift-tongue, furnished with spines’
* Most widespread native
mammal in Aust.
* 5 sub-species
* Terrestrial burrower - depends on outside climate on how long they remain inside
* Slow metabolism, tolerant of
low O2
* hunts with electricity
* rolls into a spiky ball
What are facts about echidnas?
30 – 45 cm, 2 – 7 kg
* 45 – 50 year lifespan
* Protective spines & fur undercoat
* Long snout with electro and
mechanoreceptors
* Male spur on hind ankles but no functional
venom gland
* Large prefrontal cortex in brain: capable of
planning and strategizing
What are habitat characteristics for Echidna?
- Mostly solitary - live alone and come together during mating season
- Wide ranging: alpine to desert environments - adapt well to changing environments
- Large home ranges (50 ha)
- Activity is related to temperature:
- Diurnal in cool climates
- Hibernates in winter in temperate regions
What do Echidnas feeding on, and what characteristics do they have to assist them in hunting?
- Eat ants and termites
- Snout with electro and mechanoreceptors
- Keen sense of smell
- Sensitive to low frequency sounds
- Dig with strong claws
- Edentate
- 15 cm tongue, sticky with mucus
- Protruded tongue stiffened by blood flow can
penetrate soil & wood - Keratinous ‘teeth’ along roof of mouth grind prey
- Tongue flicks in & out 100 times min-1
- 200 g of termites in 10 min
What are reproducing factors for echidnas?
- Breed May to Sept - long period depending where they are
- form Echidna trains, trails of up to 10 echidnas, up to 4 weeks - trains stay together, following each other, the last remaining male gets to mate with the female.
- Female constructs nursery burrow
- 1 egg laid into small pouch
- 10 days incubation
- Baby = ‘puggle’ - dependant for food on the mum
- 3 – 4 month - suck areolae (raise areas where milk is released from)
What is the conservation status of the Echnia?
Very common, well distributed - progressly experience habitat loss.
Threats
* Habitat loss (fallen logs, vegetation)
* Cars
* Goannas, dingoes, cats, foxes
What are Australian Eutherians comprised of?
rodents (rats and mice), bats and marine mammals
What are characteristics about eutherians?
Placental mammals
* Long gestation
* Viviparous
What are examples are introduced eutherians?
Dingoes ~ 5000 years ago
House rats & mice
Hares & rabbits
Horses & donkeys
Pigs, camels, deer, buffalo, goats
Foxes
Cats
What are Facts about rodentia?
- ~ 2000-3000 species
worldwide - Most diverse &
abundant mammal
group - Comprises ~ ½ of all
mammal species - On all continents
except Antarctica - From 7g pygmy jerboa
to 45 kg capybara
What is the mammalian phylogeny and diversity?
large amount of species
Are rodents the only Terrestrial eutherians native to Australia?
yes, family Muridae
* Arose in se Asia 14 MYA - to PNG
sea levels dropped and allowed them to travel across the lands
* Diversified on islands
* Arrived in 3 pulses
When did the first wave of rodents come to australia and what was the identity for it
- Old Endemics
* From s.e. Asia
* ~ 6-8 MYA when
Australia moved
close to Indonesia
* Appeared in fossil
record ~ 5 MYA
* Radiated widely
into 14 different
genera
some developed characteristics that allowed the movement across different continents
Where did the second wave of rodents come from?
- New Endemics
* 1 MYA, a rat
Rattus sp. entered
from New Guinea
* evolved into 7
species of Rattus
* All true native rats
through and across the continents
The last wave/ pulse of australian rodents?
- The introduced
invasives
- In the 1700s with
European invaders
- Brown rat
(Rattus norvegicus)
- Black rat
(Rattus rattus)
- House mouse
(Mus musculus)
How did the first and second wave differ from the third wave of rats?
The first and second wave diversitfied and came down the regions, where as the last wave was brought and introduced by people.
What are rodent features?
- One pair of upper and lower incisors, continually growing
- Gnawing, biting, defense
- Outer hard enamel, inner dentine
- ‘self-sharpening’ cutting edge
- Lack canine teeth
- Long caecum for fermenting fibre -
What ecological roles of native rodents?
- Omnivores
- Carnivores
- Herbivores
- Seed dispersers
- Landscape engineers
- Disease vectors
- Food for carnivorous mammals, reptiles, birds
Rodents - reproduce quickly and opportunistically in
unstable environments: ‘boom & bust’ - reproduce slower and are longer-lived in stable environments
What family do australian rats belong to?
All belong to family Muridae
* Muridae arose in Indo-Australasian region
* 2 subfamilies:
* Hydromyinae (water rats) - specialised
* Murinae
* ~ 60 species
* Fill diverse ecological niches in Aust …
What are some adaptations australian native rodents have?
- Most are terrestrial and quadruped
- Some arboreal (climbing)
- Some fossorial (burrowing)
- Some aquatic
- One genus Notomys is hopping and bipedal - elongated hind legs
- All geographic zones: tropical, alpine, arid zone… specialised to some areas
- All are short lived, fast breeding
- Almost all are omnivorous
What is the conservation status of native rodents?
Status varies from:
* Least Concern
* Near Threatened (brush tailed rabbit rat)
THREATENED SPECIES
* Vulnerable to Extinction
* Endangered
* Critically Endangered (central rock rat)
* Extinct in the Wild (basalt plains mouse)
* Extinct
Water rats - rakali
list facts and conservation issues
subfamily - hydromyninae
Australian water rat (rakali)
* Amphibious mammal
* Burrows in vegetation along fresh / brackish waterways
* Rabbit-sized (40 – 50 cm)
* Webbed hind feet - use to assist
* Thick white-tipped tail
* Long flattened head, small eyes and ears
* Dense water-repellent coat
Active during day, feed mostly at night
* Carnivorous: fish, frogs, molluscs, yabbies, waterbirds
* Can eat cane toads (avoid parotid glands)
* Threatened by habitat loss
* Protected species
* Least concern status
Water rats - water mouse/ false water mouse
list facts and conservation issues
- Intertidal mammal
- Mud nests in sedges in mangrove area
- Feeds on crabs when tide recedes
- Middens of crab shells - leave shells in piles
- Patchy distribution: e.g., S. Stradbroke Is, Tin Can Bay,
Noosa River, Maroochy River, Cairns, Mackay
Native mice - new holland mouse
list facts and conservation issues
Pseudomys novaehollandiae
* Vulnerable species
* Nocturnal
* Vanished for >100 years until 1967
* Populations increase after bushfires &
mining
* Threatened by feral predators, habitat
loss
Native mice - Spinifex hopping mouse
list facts and conservation issues
- One of ~ 10 hopping mice (5 now extinct)
- Arid-zone
- Bipedal
- Elongated hindfeet and tail
- Semi-fossorial, burrowing
- Spend huge amount of energy foraging and
transporting food back to nest - Populations boom after rain
- Least concern status
What are a list of introduced rodents?
- black rat
- brown rat
- house mouse
What are some factors that make introduced rats successful in invading?
Invaders
* Adapt readily
* Generalist diets
* Breed quickly under
favourable conditions
* Thrive alongside people
* Plagues: boom & bust
* Compete with native species
* Destruction of native habitat
* Farmland pests
* Disease vectors
How do we tell native and pest rodents apart?
3 species of pest rodents- learn their characteristics
* Where was the rodent and what was it doing
* native rats are generally shy and skittish / black rats are bold
* non-urban vs urban environment
* native food source vs human food source/debris
* Body size differences
* Size, shape, position of ears
* Tail differences
Difference between native and introduced rodents?
Introduced black & brown rats have:
* Longer & nearly naked tail cf furry tailed native rats
House mouse has
* Different teeth and more teats
* Tail > body length
* Indoor habits: house/shed
When do mouse plagues occur?
Optimal weather conditions for breeding
Rapid reproduction
Plentiful food (e.g., after drought)
How had Covid impacted the population of introduced rats?
Lockdowns meant less food in CBD (1 billion rats in Sydney!)
Migration into suburbia
Doubling of rat populations across major Australian cities
What is the subclass name of the marsupial mice? and how do they differ from rodents?
Antechinus spp.
- Not rodents!
- Carnivorous marsupial mice
- 4 pairs small sharp incisors
- Pointy face
- Large crinkly ears
- Sparsely haired tail is shorter
than body - Nocturnal insect-eaters in
forest habitats
