Lesser Stick-Nest Rat
Leporillus apicalis
Family Muridae
About
The lesser stick-nest rat or white-tipped stick-nest rat is an extinct species of rodent in the family Muridae. It lived in central Australia where it built nests of sticks that accumulate over years and can become very large. The last confirmed sighting of this rat was in 1933 although there is a credible report of a sighting in 1970. In 2008, the International Union for Conservation of Nature listed it as "critically endangered", suggesting that it may yet survive in remote areas of unsurveyed territory, but revised its evaluation to "extinct" again in 2016, based on an assessment in 2012.
How to spot it
Real occurrence confirmed near Finke Gorge National Park (Atlas of Living Australia, 2001) — no separate physical description was available on Wikipedia for this species, see the source link for more.
Documented on these trails
Found in
- Finke Gorge National Park — Central Australia & the Red Centre, NT hikes