Fragmentary evidence: a review of the landscape-scale ecology of the extinct south-eastern pig-footed bandicoot (Chaeropus ecaudatus ecaudatus)

Understanding the former distribution and habitat of relictual species is important for conservation planning, for example, in the design of re-introduction programs. This is true even for extinct taxa because such knowledge improves understanding of what has been lost and the causes of those losses, thereby benefiting projects aimed at reconstructing previous biotic communities and ecological processes. This paper examines the available information about the 12 known museum specimens and remarkably few documented sightings of the extinct eastern subspecies of the pig-footed bandicoot (Chaeropus ecaudatus). Ten specimens were collected in the 22 years between 1836 and 1857 from plains bordering the mid- to lower-Murray River and the lower Darling River, and the mid-reaches of the Bogan River in central northern New South Wales. New information is presented about the provenance of the remaining two specimens – both have uncertain collection localities and dates but may have come from the Wimmera District of western Victoria, a more temperate region than previously considered to be within the distributional range of the subspecies. The scant available evidence suggests that the south-eastern pig-footed bandicoot inhabited semi-arid woodlands in which the understorey was dominated by grasses or chenopods. The taxon is emblematic of the almost total loss of small- to medium-sized terrestrial mammals from north-western Victoria and inland New South Wales during the mid-19th Century.