Two recently identified photographs of living Nullarbor barred bandicoot (Perameles papillon) prior to extinction

Rohan Long

doi:10.1071/AM25008

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

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Two recently identified photographs of living Nullarbor barred bandicoot (Perameles papillon) prior to extinction

Rohan Long

^A ^*

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Science, University of Melbourne, Vic, Australia.

^* Correspondence to: rohan.long@unimelb.edu.au

Handling Editor: Mark Eldridge

Australian Mammalogy 47, AM25008 https://doi.org/10.1071/AM25008

Submitted: 7 March 2025 Accepted: 14 May 2025 Published: 5 June 2025

© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the Australian Mammal Society. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Two photographs of living Nullarbor barred bandicoots, Perameles papillon have been identified in the collections of the Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology at the University of Melbourne. The photographs are of captive animals photographed in the 1920s at the University of Adelaide by anatomist Frederic Wood Jones. In addition to one glass slide held by the South Australian Museum archives, these are the only documented photographs known to exist of P. papillon as a living animal, prior to the species’ extinction in the early 20th century.

Keywords: extinction, Frederic Wood Jones, marsupials, museums, Nullarbor barred bandicoot, Ooldea, Peramelemorphia, photography.

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