Northern hopping mouse

The northern hopping mouse (Notomys aquilo) is a small Australian rodent in the family Muridae, also known as woorrentinta, a name from Lardil, the language of Mornington Island. It is found only in coastal northern Australia, from Arnhem Land to the Cobourg Peninsula in the Northern Territory, but the only known population lives in the Anindilyakwa Indigenous Protected Area on Groote Eylandt; two single records from central Arnhem Land and Cape York are about 120 years old. The mouse weighs 25 to 50 grams, is brown above and white below, and has a tail about one and a half times its body length and hind feet up to 4 centimetres long. It lives in sandy soils on heathlands and grasslands, is nocturnal, eats mainly seeds with some other plant material and invertebrates, and moves by hopping, leaving bipedal tracks. Females build elaborate communal burrow systems. It is classified as vulnerable, threatened by changes in the fire regime, livestock and predation by feral cats, and a national recovery plan was prepared in 2004.