Talk:List of rodents of Australia

Rabbits

Rabbits are rodents, and there are plenty in Australia.

There are hares, too.

Agemegos 13:23, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Rabbits and hares are not rodents. --Aranae 17:03, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Headings

Introduced species are not endemic. An endemic species by definition is one which is found only in one place and nowhere else in the world. For example, the Emperor penguin is endemic to Antarctica. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.192.52.175 (talk) 16:53, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

"Old Endemics" and "New Endemics are Strahan's terms IIRC (my copy is in storage). They refer to the two main phases of (natural, pre-historic) rodent invasion of the Australian continent. There are issues with the usage here:

• Recent introductions like Ratus ratus don't belong in either. They should be in a separate category "Introduced".
• ?Strahan's use of "endemic" refered to the continent, not the country. Many species also occur in eg PNG and eastern Indonesia, so aren't endemic to the country Australia.

Suggestions?--Gergyl (talk) 03:10, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

If this list includes species endemic to PNG and eastern Indonesia, perhaps the article should be moved to List of Australasian rodents.

No, this is the Australian list; an Australasian list would be longer. We're just talking about the headings here.--Gergyl (talk) 02:41, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I thought the sentence in the article distinguishing the country and the continent was confusing, so I've changed it to: "Several of these species are not actually endemic to the country Australia, but to the Australasia ecozone, which includes Papua New Guinea and eastern Indonesia."

I had never heard of the eastern Indonesian islands included in Australasia, and indeed they are not, but I see they're in the Australasia ecozone. --Chriswaterguy talk 18:36, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

--Chriswaterguy talk 18:33, 18 December 2008 (UTC)