Antechinus argentus, Baker, Mutton & Hines, 2013

Baker, Andrew M, Mutton, Thomas Y & Hines, Harry B, 2013, A new dasyurid marsupial from Kroombit Tops, south-east Queensland, Australia: the Silver-headed Antechinus, Antechinus argentus sp. nov. (Marsupialia: Dasyuridae), Zootaxa 3746 (2), pp. 201-239 : 218

(7) A. argentus versus A. leo Van Dyck

Pelage: A. argentus has a silvery head and neck that merges subtly to deep olive-buff on the rump and flanks; A. leo is more uniformly cinnamon on the head and back with slightly darkened hair forming a mid-dorsal head stripe. A. argentus has a prominent, pale (slightly broken) eye ring; there is usually no evidence of an eye ring in A. leo .

External measurements: A. argentus is smaller than A. leo in absolute measurement (i.e., with no overlap in ranges) for four external body characters in males and females, as follows: wt, hb, hf and tv.

Dentary: Antechinus argentus is smaller than A. leo in absolute measurement for a range of dentary characters for males and females, as follows: BL, Dent, IBW, IPV, M 2 W, NW, OBW, R-LC 1, R-LM 1, R-LM 1 T, R-LM 2, R-LM 3, ZW, HT, PL, SWR-LC 1 B, TC, NWR, PML, UML, HT-B, I 1 -P 3, LML, I 1 -P 3, M 2 W AND UPL. A. argentus is also smaller than A. bellus in absolute measurement for males in PPV and females in IOW.

Other Comments: A. argentus occurs in south-east Qld at Kroombit Tops NP, whereas A. leo is known only from north of Princess Charlotte Bay, on Cape York Peninsula. Genetics: uncorrected pairwise range differences at the mitochondrial gene CytB between A. argentus and A. leo are 8.1–8.8%.