Hello everyone,
I'm a student in Heritage and I'm curently doing my traineeship in the science faculty of Toulouse where I inventory a lot of taxidermy.
I encounter difficulties to identify some of the animals and require your help.
Do you know what this animal is ? It is called 'dasyure viverrin' but I can't find anything on google. Its very damaged so it's even more difficult to identify !
It's 47,5cm long x 21cm large x 20cm high
Thanks for your help !
Dasyurus viverrinus refers to the Eastern quoll, but this specimen looks more like a spotted cuscus (Spilocuscus maculatus). Both species are Australasian marsupials.
Of course ! It really looks like a spotted cuscus ! Thanks a lot, I really couldn't find anything on this one
Almost certainly this is a spotted cuscus (Spilocuscus maculatus). Its lower incisor is not that of the Eastern quoll - Dasyurus viverinus. Quolls have dentition more akin to an insectivore than to the possum family, to which the cuscus belongs. The tail has clearly been lost from this specimen but its wide base is clearly shown in one of the photographs. The Eastern quoll is, thankfully, still common in parts of Tasmania, but rather rare now on mainland Australia.
No more doubts. Spilocuscus maculatus. I think you will have problems in restoring this specimen as has been eaten by insects. Provide fumigation to it. Best wishes
Here is the French Wikipedia site for Spilocuscus maculatus:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spilocuscus_maculatus
Thank you everybody,
Unfortunately a lot of my specimens are very damaged... But there is so many to inventory that I will not have the time to restore them ! I can only report their condition to my superior ! Also a lot of them are exposed to the sun all the time, which is really not a good thing !
wikipedia is the best site for these identification .with my regard
@Gippoliti, it is, it was donate to the university a long time ago by the old science faculty. Teachers and researchers are still bringing back specimens from their expeditions to enrish the collection, which is used for teaching students zoology and biology, so that is very interesting.
I warmly suggest you, if you have time, to make some bibliographic research about the origin of the old specimens.
Unfortunately I won't even have the time to finish my inventory I think... But all the names of the taxidermist I could find on the specimens don't lead to anything, exept for one or two. Plus, I didn't found any good bibliography about taxidermy !
Oh sure. I shall try my best to help you. You go through marsupials (under class mammalia. )in any web site
I think You couldn't find because it has changed name Dasyurus viverrinus.
Most popular information is in wikipedia. Here is link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_quoll
Scientific information you can find in scholar.google.com
@Manon
Confirm Spotted Cuscus (Spilocuscus maculatus)
https://www.google.it/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjlg_C43ejNAhXLthQKHSA6Bp0QjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zoochat.com%2F695%2Fspotted-cuscus-stuttgart-zoology-museum-9th-424651%2F&psig=AFQjCNH0dBk3B161TiSPMCPYLEBgp9YfGg&ust=1468234356590493
A few thoughts:
The tag would lead me to believe it was an Eastern quoll.
However, the photos of live and prepared quolls I've seen made me wonder about other species of quoll. That was based on the shortness of the snout. Among quolls, I thought it looked more like a western, tiger or bronze quoll based on that feature than an eastern (which appears to be more elongated).
But then, again, I looked at the spotted cuscus photo Francesco shared above, and yeah, that's much more like it, so it looks like your specimen may have been misidentified or mistagged.
Did it happen to have a tail with it in the box anywhere? That could help as well, plus having a common object in the background to give a sense of scale.
But I'd concur with Francesco.
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