Brown antechinus (Antechinus stuartii)

Family Dasyuridae

The brown antechinus (Antechinus stuartii), also known as Stuart's antechinus and Macleay's marsupial mouse, is a species of small carnivorous marsupial of the family Dasyuridae. The males die after their first breeding season, and the species holds the world record for being the world's smallest semelparous mammal.

Behaviour

The brown antechinus is mostly nocturnal and is arboreal, and females build large communal nests shared by many individuals. Brown antechinus diet includes beetles, spiders, amphipods, and cockroaches, although it is an opportunistic feeder (Braithwaite, 1995)

Reproduction and Development

Like all antechinuses, the males die after their first breeding season (which lasts two weeks) as a result of stress and exhaustion (Menkhorst and Knight, 2001). The current accepted hypothesis to why this happens is that sperm competition drives increased male investment in reproduction (Fisher et al 2013). Female brown antechinuses do not possess a pouch; the young must attach themselves to the teats and there are usually 8 teats.  The litter size is six or seven young.

Distribution and habitat

The brown antechinus is found east of the Great Dividing Range in Australia, from southeastern Queensland to around Kioloa, New South Wales.[5] It is mostly found in forested habitats (Braithwaite, 1995). with dense lower ground cover and low fire frequency (Mowat et al. 2015).

References:

Braithwaite, R. W. (1995). "Brown Antechinus". In Strahan, Ronald (ed.). The Mammals of Australia. Reed Books. pp. 94–97. ISBN 0-7301-0484-2.

Fisher, Diana O.; Dickman, Christopher R.; Jones, Menna E.; Blomberg, Simon P. (2013-10-29). "Sperm competition drives the evolution of suicidal reproduction in mammals". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 110 (44): 17910–17914. doi:10.1073/pnas.1310691110. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 3816400. PMID 24101455.

Menkhorst, Peter; Knight, Frank (2001). A field guide to the mammals of Australia (1st ed.). Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press. pp. 56–57. ISBN 019550870X.

Mowat, E.J.; Webb J.K.; Crowther M.S. (2015). "Fire-mediated niche-separation between two sympatric small mammal species". Austral Ecology. 40: 50–59. doi:10.1111/aec.12166. hdl:10453/31056.