Australian marsupials top the list of world's most threatened and unique animals
Updated protocol aims to identify species needing urgent conservation attention.
Mountain pygmy possum (Burramys parvus). Credit: Zoos Victoria
Three of the top five animals in a new index grading species on their evolutionary distinctiveness and endangered status are Australian marsupials.
The mountain pygmy possum – which calls the Australian Alps home – heads the list, ahead of the Madagascan aye-aye, Leadbeater’s possum which lives in the southeast of Australia, Cuban solenodon and numbat, now restricted to pockets of Western Australia.
These rankings emerge from the Zoological Society of London’s revised Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) protocol, which identifies species that should be prioritised for conservation based on their evolutionary history.
The mountain pygmy possum, which is critically endangered due to habitat loss and the collapse of its primary food source, the bogong moth, represents 25 million years of evolution.
More:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/australian-marsupials-threatened-unique/
I was curious about "Bogong Moths" and had to find a picture:
