Antechinus godmani, (Thomas)

Dyck, Steve Van, 2014, The Black-tailed Antechinus, Antechinus arktos sp. nov.: a new species of carnivorous marsupial from montane regions of the Tweed Volcano caldera, eastern Australia, Zootaxa 3765 (2), pp. 101-133 : 117

(12) A. arktos versus A. godmani (Thomas)

Pelage: A. arktos has a brownish-grey head that changes markedly to an orange-brown rump, fuscous black hindfeet, a finely-furred, black tail; A. godmani is more uniformly brown on the head and back with a nakedlooking tail.

External Measurements: A. arktos is similar in external body measurements to A. godmani (see Table 5).

Craniodental Characters: A. arktos is smaller than A. godmani in absolute measurement for a range of measurements in males and females: IPV, M 2 W and M 2 W. A. arktos is significantly smaller than A. godmani for R- LC 1, R-LM 1 T, SWR-LC 1 B and TC in males and at SWR-LC 1 B and TC in females. A. arktos is larger than A. godmani in absolute measurement at APV and NW in males and at APV in females. A. arktos is significantly larger than A. godmani at NWR in males ( Table 5).

Other Comments: A. arktos occur in south-east Qld and north-east NSW in areas of high elevation and rainfall on the Tweed Volcano caldera, whereas A. godmani is known from only the wet tropics in north-east Qld. Genetics: uncorrected pairwise range differences at the mitochondrial gene CytB between A. arktos and A. godmani are 13.2– 14.1%.