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 : 219-220

(11) A. argentus versus A. swainsonii (Waterhouse)

Pelage: A. argentus has a silvery head and neck that merges subtly to deep olive-buff on the rump and flanks; A. swainsonii has more uniformly dark brown or grizzled grey fur on the head and back. A. swainsonii has longer, more curved claws, especially on the hands, than A. argentus .

External measurements: A. argentus is smaller than A. swainsonii in absolute measurement for three external body characters in both males and females: wt, hb and hf (see Table 4).

Dentary: Antechinus argentus is smaller than A. swainsonii in absolute measurement for a range of dentary characters in males and females, as follows: APV, BL, Dent, IBW, IOW, PPV, HT, PL, HT-B, I 1 -P 3, I 1 -P 3 and UPL. Antechinus argentus is also smaller than A. swainsonii in absolute measurement for a range of dentary characters in males only, as follows: UML and LML, and in females only: PML (Table 4).

Other Comments: A. argentus occurs in south-east Qld at Kroombit Tops NP, whereas A. swainsonii is known from south-east Australia as far north as the montane forests of the Qld/NSW border. Genetics: uncorrected pairwise range differences at the mitochondrial gene CytB between A. argentus and A. swainsonii are 13.2–14.7%.