The fawn antechinus (Antechinus bellus) is a species of small carnivorous marsupial found in northern Australia. It is the only Antechinus to be found in the Northern Territory and has a patchy, restricted range.
The earliest scientific collection of a fawn antechinus was made by John T. Tunney,[3] and the first zoological description was made in 1904 by the renowned biologist Oldfield Thomas, who gave it the species name bellus, meaning beautiful.[4] It has never been confused with other species.
It is a member of the family Dasyuridae and of the genusAntechinus (meaning "hedgehog-equivalent"), which has nine other members.
The fawn antechinus is unique among antechinuses, being considerably paler than many of its relatives. It is a light grey colour and is distinguished from the only other similar species in the area where it lives (the sandstone dibbler and the red-cheeked dunnart) by its larger size and paler colouring. It is insectivorous and, like many of its relatives, all of the males die after the breeding season.[5]
The fawn antechinus has a breeding season during August. Young are born in September–October in litters of up to ten, and are usually weaned by January.[5]
The fawn antechinus is found in the Top End of the Northern Territory, where it was once fairly common.[4] It inhabits tall, fairly open forest in the tropics. Populations have declined substantially since European colonisation, with one study in the Northern Territory finding a 20% reduction in the extent of occurrence of and a 45% reduction in the breadth of occupied environmental space.[6]
