antechinus

plural antechinuses · plural rare antechini

1. Any member of the genus Antechinus of small carnivorous Australian marsupials that resemble shrews.

   If held as a colony outside the breeding season, antechinus show relatively little aggression while still forming a linear hierarchy.

   2007, Stephen Jackson, Australian Mammals: Biology and Captive Management, unnumbered page

   5 more examples

   These are distinguished from the Monodelphia, or Placentalia, by bringing forth their young in a very rudimentary state, nourishing them in a “marsupium,” which is either a regular pouch or a simple skinfold, such as our native cats and antechini develop at the time of parturition.

   1873 November 5, Gerard Krefft, “Australian Natural History”, in Transactions of the Royal Society of New South Wales, for the Year 1873, Sydney, N.S.W.: Thomas Richards, […], published 1874, page 135

   Being on the West Coast at the time, and always anxious to forward any scientific investigations, I collected all the varieties of kangaroo rats, antechini, and rats that came under my observation.

   1886, T[homas] B[ather] Moore, “Western Tasmania”, in J[ames] P[ark] Thomson, editor, Proceedings of the Queensland Branch of the Geographical Society of Australasia. 1st Session, 1885-6., volume I, Brisbane, Qld.: Watson, Ferguson & Co., […], page 65

   Smaller than the wambengers, the antechinuses are secretive and are seldom seen by people unless they are caught and brought into houses by domestic cats.

   1970, W. D. L. Ride, Ella Fry, A Guide to the Native Mammals of Australia, page 116

   Two species of antechini live above the snowline. These are pugnacious rat-sized marsupials. Male antechini copulate so vigorously that they die from exhaustion.

   1990, Eric Hoffman, “Victoria’s Alpine Region”, in Adventuring in Australia (The Sierra Club Adventure Travel Guides), San Francisco, Calif.: Sierra Club Books, →ISBN, page 239

   I thought it was my fault until I consulted the experts, and found that antechinus die naturally at this time of the year.[…]Antechinus eat beetles, spiders and cockroaches, which they find in decaying litter and topsoil in their habitat of dense ground cover.

   1998, Deirdre Slattery, chapter I, in The Australian Alps: Kosciuszko, Alpine and Namadgi National Parks, page 67