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Concept
Woylie
Summary
The woylie or brush-tailed bettong (Bettongia penicillata) is a small, critically endangered, gerbil-like mammal native to forests and shrubland of Australia. A member of the rat-kangaroo family (Potoroidae), it moves by hopping and is active at night, digging for fungi to eat. It is also a marsupial and carries its young in a pouch. Once widespread, the woylie mostly died out from habitat loss and introduced predators such as foxes. It is currently restricted to two small areas in Western Australia. There are two subspecies: B. p. ogilbyi in the west, and the now-extinct B. p. penicillata in the southeast.
A species was first described by J. E. Gray in 1837, based on the skin and skull of an adult male obtained by the Zoological Society of London, and placed with the British Museum of Natural History. The origin of the holotype has not been determined, but it is presumed to be New South Wales.
The two subspecies recognised are:
Bettongia penicillata penicillata J.E. Gray, 1837. The nominate subspecies, classified as a modern extinction. This was the south-eastern subspecies.
Bettongia penicillata ogilbyi (Waterhouse, 1841). This is the south-western subspecies. A description published as Hypsiprymnus ogilbyi, a species now recognised as the only extant subspecies of B. penicillata. The cited author is G. R. Waterhouse, who presented a manuscript prepared by John Gould. The type was collected at York, Western Australia.
The common name, "woylie", is derived from walyu in the Nyungar language. The regional variants amongst Nyungar peoples are noted as wol, woli and woylie. The spelling woylie, and its variants, were used for the species in reports and advertisements in Western Australian newspapers, and the spelling 'woylye' was added in the 1920s. The names boodie and boodie rat came to be applied by the rural inhabitants to several species in south-west Australia, including the woylie, and printed in references to them after 1897. However, the boodie (Bettongia lesueur) is now recognised as a separate species.
Official source
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