Stripe-faced Dunnart

The striped-faced dunnart (Sminthopsis macroura) is a small, Australian, nocturnal, "marsupial mouse," part of the family Dasyuridae. The species' distribution occurs throughout much of inland central and northern Australia, occupying a range of arid and semi-arid habitats. While the species has a broad distribution range, it has been declining across much of Australia, including the western region of New South Wales (NSW). This is due to several threatening processes, primarily habitat degradation. This has led to the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage listing the species as 'vulnerable'. The species is not listed on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species list the species as of 'least concern'. Recent genetic studies have discovered that this dunnart species is in fact three distinct species that over several million years diverged from each other. However, because they are difficult to distinguish, they tend to be treated as a single species. The three subspecies are as follows: Sminthopsis macroura macroura in central, eastern, and western Australia S.m. stalkeri in central northern Australia S.m. froggatti in the Kimberley region == Description == The stripe-faced dunnart has an average…