Antechinus leo, Van Dyck, 1980

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

(13) A. arktos versus A. leo Van Dyck

Pelage: A. arktos has a brownish-grey head that changes markedly to an orange-brown rump, fuscous black hindfeet, a thick-based, finely-furred, black tail and an orange-yellow eye and cheek patch; A. leo is uniformly cinnamon on the head and back with slightly darkened hair forming a mid-dorsal head stripe.

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

Craniodental Characters: A. arktos is smaller than A. leo in absolute measurement for a range of measurements in males and females: M 2 W, R-LC 1, R-LM 1 T, R-LM 2, R-LM 3, SWR-LC 1 B and M 2 W. A. arktos is significantly smaller than A. leo for IPV, NW and R-LM 1 in males and at NW, R-LC 1 and M 2 W in females. A. arktos is larger than A. leo in absolute measurement for a range of measurements in males and females: APV, IOW, HT-B, I 1 -P 3 and UPL, and at I 1 -P 3 in males only ( 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. leo is known only from north of Princess Charlotte Bay, on Cape York Peninsula in far northern Qld. Genetics: uncorrected pairwise range differences at the mitochondrial gene CytB between A. arktos and A. leo are 12.8–13.6%.