Antechinus bellus (Thomas, 1904)

Dyck, Steve Van, 2013, Taxonomy and redescription of the Fawn Antechinus, Antechinus bellus (Thomas) (Marsupialia: Dasyuridae), Zootaxa 3613 (3), pp. 201-228 : 212

(5) A. bellus versus A. stuartii Macleay

Pelage: Antechinus bellus is a strikingly pale animal: pale to medium grey above, sometimes with a faun tinge, whereas A. stuartii is uniformly brownish from head to rump.

External measurements: Antechinus bellus is larger than A. stuartii in absolute measurement (i.e., with no overlap in ranges) for the following external characters for males: head-body length, hind-foot length and ear length, and the following eaxternal characters for females: tail length, hindfoot length and ear length. Moreover, A. bellus is significantly larger than A. stuartii in tail length for males and head-body length for females (Table 2).

Skull: Antechinus bellus differs from A. stuartii in absolute measurement (i.e., with no overlap in ranges) for the following 10 skull/dentary characters for males: BL, IOW, IPV, NW, R-LC 1, R-LM 1, R-LM 2, R-LM 3, BuL and LML and the following 18 skull/dentary characters for females: BL, Dent, IOW, IPV, M 2 W, OBW, PPV, R-LC 1, R- LM 1, R-LM 2, R-LM 3, HT, PL, SWR-LC 1 B, UML, HT-B, BuL, LML. Moreover, A. bellus has a range of other dentary features that significantly (p<0.01) differ from A. stuartii — 14 variables for males and 7 variables for females, as shown in Table 2.

Other comments: Antechinus bellus is found in savannah woodlands of the Top End, Northern Territory, whereas A. stuartii is found in eastern Australia from about Sydney, NSW, in the south to far south-east Qld in the north. A. bellus females have 10 nipples in the pouch, whereas A. stuartii females have 6–10 nipples in the pouch. A. bellus possesses a distally thickened and twisted supratragus of the ear rather than the simple, uncurled structure found in A. stuartii . Genetics: uncorrected pairwise range differences at the mitochondrial gene Cytochrome B (CytB) between A. bellus and A. stuartii are 13–14.2%.