Spool-and-Line Tracking of the New Guinea Spiny Bandicoot, Echymipera kalubu (Marsupialia, Peramelidae)

Aspects of the ecology of the kalubu bandicoot (Echymipera kalubu) and observations on Raffray’s bandicoot (Peroryctes raffrayanus), Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea

“…Flannery (1995) suggests that Raffray's bandicoot is primarily found in undisturbed forest; however, our results indicate that it will also use secondary forest and old gardens. These results confirm previous studies indicating that kalubu bandicoots are among the most abundant game species encountered in New Guinea (Hide et al 1984;Flannery 1995) and are able to exploit a wider range of often disturbed habitats (Anderson et al 1988) than Raffray's or Clara's bandicoot (Echymipera clara) (van Deusen and Keith 1966;Flannery 1995). While habitat use by the kalubu bandicoot and Raffray's bandicoot were different to some degree, their behaviour was broadly similar, with animals being almost exclusively active at night and resting in hollow tree stumps, piles of leaves or thick vegetation during the day, as previously reported (Anderson et al 1988).…”

“…Our records of mass and reproduction substantiate Flannery's (1995) observations that females breed at a young age, with sexual maturity occurring at a body mass of~375-400 g. In contrast to Lidicker and Ziegler (1968), who reported that testes reach mature size in animals weighing 300-500 g, we found that all males captured in our study had large external testes, including animals as small as 275 g. Both Perameles and Isoodon species of the Peramelidae are reported to reach sexual maturity at 3-5 months and 4-8 months, respectively (Gemmell 1986;Short et al 1998), and it is plausible that kalubu bandicoots reach maturity at a similar age. The kalubu bandicoot (Anderson et al 1988;Flannery 1995) and other bandicoots (Flannery 1995) are reported to utilise daytime nest or den sites, a result confirmed by our study. However, radio-tracking of kalubu bandicoots and the single Raffray's bandicoot indicates that animals were not restricted to a few nest sites, but on most occasions (>90% for the kalubu bandicoot) were using a different site from one day to the next.…”

“…Records from capture locations and radio-tracking of this species confirm the spool-and-line tracking work of Anderson et al (1988) and observations of Flannery (1995), with this species being found in a diverse range of habitats, including gardens, pitpit grass and areas of coffee plantation and secondary forest. By contrast, Raffray's bandicoot was less common and captures of this species and radio-tracking data for one individual suggest that it is more commonly encountered in more mature areas of secondary forest and old gardens.…”

“…However, radio-tracking of kalubu bandicoots and the single Raffray's bandicoot indicates that animals were not restricted to a few nest sites, but on most occasions (>90% for the kalubu bandicoot) were using a different site from one day to the next. Other than hollow tree stumps or logs (Anderson et al 1988) or shallow burrows (Flannery 1995), our impression was that bandicoots were simply utilising deep piles of leaf litter or thick vegetation during the daytime, rather than having specific nest sites.…”

“…To date, published studies on the ecology of New Guinea's bandicoots consist of information on hunting returns (e.g. Dwyer 1985;Hide et al 1984), spool-and-line tracking (Anderson et al 1988), and data on reproductive status, natural history and distribution (Hughes et al 1990;Aplin and Woolley 1993;Flannery 1995). Knowledge of some of New Guinea's rarest and most elusive mammals such as the long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus bruijnii) (Opiang 2009) currently exceeds that available for the region's widespread and common bandicoots.…”