#wambenger

[vintagewildlife]

Broad-footed phascogale By: Australian Information Bureau From: Living Mammals of the World 1969

[iicraft505]

Red-tailed phascogale (Phascogale calura)

Mark Marathon

[animalids]

Common wambenger (Phascogale tapoatafa)

Photo by Ken Stepnell

[vintagewildlife]

Phascogale By: M. Archer From: Walker's Mammals of the World 1964

[animaltoday]

Red Tailed Phascogale/Wambenger (Phascogale calura) - 

Phascogales are small carnivorous marsupials native to western Australia.  There are only two species of Phascogale; the red tailed and the brush tailed.  The red tailed is the smaller of the two.  

These little marsupials are best known for their die hard mating habits.  Males will become so overwhelmed with hormones that they usually die shortly after their first mating seasons.  In the wild, males will live just over a year.  Females can live up to about 3 years.  Females might produce one or two litters in a lifetime. 

Living primarily in trees, it eats mostly insects, arachnids, and sometimes small reptiles or mammals.  It does not need to drink water, as it gets its moisture from its food. 

It is vulnerable to introduced predators and more recently, new chemicals that threaten its population.  They have been listed as near threatened within the last few years. 

Photos: (top) (bottom left) (bottom right) 

[brilliantmistake]

Only the males, though. From the original research paper "... females have maximized sperm competition among males by highly synchronizing estrus and mating promiscuously, the die-off mechanism is adaptive in males even though the resulting immune collapse is fatal."