Antechinus flavipes subsp. flavipes, flavipes

Baker, Andrew M. & Dyck, Steve Van, 2013, Taxonomy and redescription of the Yellow-footed Antechinus, Antechinus flavipes (Waterhouse) (Marsupialia: Dasyuridae), Zootaxa 3649 (1), pp. 1-62 : 21-22

(7) A. flavipes flavipes versus A. leo

Pelage: A. flavipes flavipes has a grey head that merges to medium orange-yellow tonings on the rump, flanks and tail base, whereas A. leo is more uniformly cinnamon on the head and back with slightly darkened hair forming a mid-dorsal head stripe. A. flavipes flavipes has a prominent pale eye ring; there is usually no evidence of this in A. leo .

External measurements: A. f. flavipes is smaller than A. leo in absolute measurement (i.e., with no overlap in ranges) for hind foot length in both males and females. A. f. flavipes is significantly smaller than A. leo for body weight, head-body length, tail-vent length and ear length in males and in head-body length and tail-vent length in females ( Table 2).

Skull: A. f. flavipes differs from A. leo in absolute measurement (i.e., with no overlap in ranges) for no skull/ dentary characters in males and the following characters in females—smaller BL, IBW, R-LC 1, R-LM 1, SWR- LC 1 B, TC, PML and I 1 -P 3. A. f. flavipes has numerous other dentary features that significantly (p<0.01) differ from A. leo —23 variables for males and 17 for females, as shown in Table 2.

Other Comments: A. f. flavipes has a simple, uncurled supratragus on the external ear; A. leo has a curled supratragus. A. f. flavipes females have 10–14 pouch nipples, whereas A. leo females have 10 pouch nipples. A. f. flavipes is found in south-eastern Australia, across 4 states: Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, and in Queensland is only found south of Rockhampton. A. leo is restricted to far north Queensland, north of Princess Charlotte Bay on Cape York Peninsula. Genetics: uncorrected pairwise range differences at the mitochondrial gene Cytochrome B (CytB) between A. f. flavipes and A. leo are 10.5–12.2%.