The New Holland Mouse is a species of rodent

Rodent

Rodentia is an order of mammals also known as rodents, characterised by two continuously growing incisors in the upper and lower jaws which must be kept short by gnawing....

 in the family Muridae

Muridae

Muridae is the largest family of mammals. It contains over 600 species found naturally throughout Eurasia, Africa, and Australia. They have been introduced worldwide. The group includes true mice and rats, gerbils, and relatives....

. It was first described by George Waterhouse

George Waterhouse

George Waterhouse may refer to:*George Robert Waterhouse , British naturalist*George Marsden Waterhouse , Premier of South Australia, and Premier of New Zealand...

 in 1843. It vanished from view for over a century before its rediscovery in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park

Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park

Ku-ring-gai Chase is a national park in New South Wales, Australia, 25 km north of Sydney located largely within the Ku-ring-gai, Hornsby, Warringah and Pittwater municipal areas. Ku-ring-gai Chase is also officially classed as a suburb by the Geographical Names Board of New South Wales...

 north of Sydney in 1967. It is found only in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, within the states of New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

, and Tasmania

Tasmania

Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...

.

Victorian Populations

The first living animals were recorded in the state of Victoria in 1970 on the Mornington Peninsula

Mornington Peninsula

The Mornington Peninsula is a peninsula located south-east of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. It is surrounded by Port Phillip to the west, Western Port to the east and Bass Strait to the south, and is connected to the mainland in the north. Geographically, the peninsula begins its protrusion...

. The New Holland Mouse has since been discovered in Victoria at a number of near coastal locations, mostly to the east of Melbourne, including Cranbourne

Cranbourne

- Places :*Cranborne, Dorset*Cranborne Chase, Dorset*Cranbourne, Berkshire*Cranbourne Chase, Berkshire*Cranbourne Lodge, a royal lodge, within Cranbourne Chase*Cranbourne, Hampshire*Cranbourne, Victoria, Australia**Cranbourne railway line...

, Langwarrin, Yanakie Isthmus

Yanakie Isthmus

Yanakie Isthmus is a sandy isthmus that connects Wilsons Promontory to mainland Victoria, south-eastern Australia. The small holiday town of Sandy Point and nearby Shallow Inlet lie on the western side of the isthmus.-References:...

, the south-western end of the Ninety Mile Beach

Ninety Mile Beach

Ninety Mile Beach may refer to:*Ninety Mile Beach , in Australia*Ninety Mile Beach, Western Australia*Ninety Mile Beach, New Zealand de:Ninety Mile Beach...

 and a number of sites near Loch Sport, Mullundung State Forest and Providence Ponds. A number of these populations are now thought to be extinct

Extinction

In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...

.

One known population occurs to the west of Melbourne, in the eastern Otway Ranges near Anglesea

Anglesea

Anglesea may refer to:*Anglesea, Victoria, an Australian town*Anglesea Football Club, an Australian rules football club*Anglesea Borough, New Jersey, former borough, currently part of North Wildwood, New Jersey, United States...

. The Anglesea population, discovered in 1980, comprises a number of sub-populations which were intensively studied by Deakin University

Deakin University

Deakin University is an Australian public university with nearly 40,000 higher education students in 2010. It receives more than A$600 million in operating revenue annually, and controls more than A$1.3 billion in assets. It received more than A$35 million in research income in 2009 and had 835...

 researchers throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Some of the Anglesea sub-populations went extinct after the 1983 Ash Wednesday wildfires

Ash Wednesday fires

The Ash Wednesday bushfires, known in South Australia as Ash Wednesday II, were a series of bushfires that occurred in south-eastern Australia on 16 February 1983. Within twelve hours, more than 180 fires fanned by winds of up to 110 km per hour caused widespread destruction across the states...

. Others have persisted until at least the mid-1990s. The current status of the Angelsea sub-populations is uncertain, but they may be now locally extinct

Local extinction

Local extinction, also known as extirpation, is the condition of a species which ceases to exist in the chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere...

.

Conservation status

The New Holland Mouse is listed as a threatened (vulnerable) species on the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicthreatenedlist.pl?wanted=fauna

It is listed as threatened on the Victorian Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988. An Action Statement has also been prepared for the New Holland Mouse under this Act.

It is listed as endangered in Victoria on the Department of Sustainability and Environment 2003 Advisory list of threatened vertebrate fauna.

External links

• Baillie, J. 1996. Pseudomys novaehollandiae. 2011 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded on 23 September 2011.
• Musser, G. G. and M. D. Carleton. 2005. Superfamily Muroidea. pp. 894–1531 in Mammal Species of the World a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. D. E. Wilson and D. M. Reeder eds. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
• Wilson, B. A. 1991, ‘The Ecology of Pseudomys novaehollandiae (Waterhouse, 1843) in the Eastern Otway Ranges, Victoria.’ Wildlife Research. 18:233-247.
• Wilson, B. A., Bourne, A. R. and Jessop, R. E. 1986, ‘Ecology of Small Mammals in a Coastal Heathland at Anglesea, Victoria.’ Australian Wildlife Research. 13:397-406.