Antechinus argentus, Baker, Mutton & Hines, 2013

Baker, Andrew M, Mutton, Thomas Y & Hines, Harry B, 2013, A new dasyurid marsupial from Kroombit Tops, south-east Queensland, Australia: the Silver-headed Antechinus, Antechinus argentus sp. nov. (Marsupialia: Dasyuridae), Zootaxa 3746 (2), pp. 201-239 : 214-215

(1) A. argentus versus A. mysticus Baker, Mutton and Van Dyck

Pelage: A. argentus has a striking silver/grey head and neck, merging gradually to deep olive-buff fur on the rump and flanks, whereas A. mysticus has a greyish-brown head and neck, merging gradually to yellowish-buff on the rump and flanks.

External measurements: There were no significant differences in external body measures (Table 4).

Dentary: Antechinus argentus differs from A. mysticus in absolute measurement (i.e., with no overlap in ranges) for no skull / dentary characters as far as we know (refer Tables 1 & 2). However, A. argentus has several dentary features that significantly (p<0.05) differ from A. mysticus —2 variables for females, as shown in Table 4. Moreover, the A. argentus skulls tend to be smaller in total length and breadth across the snout, with smaller posterior vacuities in the skull, than A. mysticus .

Other Comments: A. argentus apparently occurs only on Kroombit Tops NP, 60km south south-west of Gladstone in south-east Qld, whereas A. mysticus occurs in scattered coastal populations between the Qld / NSW border in far south-east Qld and Eungella NP near Mackay in mid-east Qld, a straight line distance of some 800km. Genetics: uncorrected pairwise range differences at the mitochondrial gene Cytochrome B (CytB) between A. argentus and A. mysticus are 7.2–7.5%.