Myoictis Gray 1858

Three-striped dasyures belong to the family Dasyuridae. Except for a few melanistic specimens, they differ from other dasyurids by having three longitudinal black stripes on the back. They have a blunt rostrum and wide interorbital region; a diastema between the first and second incisors; a large second premolar compared with the first and third; large, well rounded bullae and nasal bones broadened at their bases (2,3).

They are widely distributed over mainland New Guinea and occur on some offshore islands including Salawati and Waigeo, Japen and the Aru Islands. There is uncertainty about the number of species or subspecies of Myoictis. Laurie & Hill (4) list one species, M. melas, and three subspecies, M.m. melas, M.m. wallacei and M.m. wavicus). Ziegler (5) and Menzies (6) refer only to M. melas and Flannery (7-9) lists two subspecies, M.m. melas and M.m. wallacei.

There are four species: Woolley's Three-striped Dasyure (Myoictis leucura); Three-striped Dasyure (M. melas); Wallace's Dasyure (M. wallacii) and Tate’s Three-striped Dasyure (M. wavicus). These differ in the form of the tail and there is no overlap found in their ranges as presently known (1).

A small male specimen of Myoictis melas was collected in 1828, being the first dasyurid marsupial collected from New Guinea. Papuans said the “Insinsie” lived in the forest on the ground and foraged mainly at night (1). It was referred to as Phascogale melas by Macklot (11), due to its uniform black colour. Schlegel (12) described a second species based on two specimens (male and female) collected by H.A. Bernstein in 1865 on the island of Salawati, northwest New Guinea. This species, Phascogalea Thorbeckiana, differed from P. melas in being brightly coloured with three black stripes down the back. In 1866, Schlegel (13) noted a specimen collected by A.R. Wallace on the Aru Islands and described by Gray (14) as Myoictis Wallacii.

Thomas (15) synonymized melas, thorbeckiana and bruijnii under thorbeckiana and pilicauda with wallace, but Jentinck (16) noted that melas has priority over thorbeckiana. Tate & Archbold (2) placed these forms in a subgenus (Myoictis) of Phascogale within the Phascogalinae, while Tate (3) placed Myoictis as a genus within the Dasyurinae. He recognized two species, Myoictis melas (including melas, thorbeckiana, bruijnii, senex and bürgersi) and M. wallacei (including pilicauda). Tate & Archbold (2) suggested that Phascogale nouhuysii (17) might represent another species of Myoictis, but Tate (3) referred nouhuysii to the genus Neophascogale.

Myoictis or striped dasyure is a genus of marsupials in the order Dasyuromorphia. It is found in New Guinea.

There are four species:

Woolley's three-striped dasyure, Myoictis leucura Three-striped dasyure, Myoictis melas Wallace's dasyure, Myoictis wallacii Tate's three-striped dasyure, Myoictis wavicus

The taxonomy for the species was difficult for most biologist to understand. Woolley proposed the names the four different species by recognizing the animal by the morphological differences. While also using genetic testing, scientist have found that Myoictis melas and Myoictis wallacei contain a sequence divergence of 12.85%.

Each of the four species were found to have significant physical differences between them. Myoictis wavicus averages roughly 122 grams, Myoictis wallacei averages roughly 230 grams, Myoictis leucura averages roughly 220 grams, and Myoictis melas averages roughly 220 grams. The proportions of head and limb size were also found to be smaller with the smaller mass.

Myoictis leucura, or Woolley's three-striped dasyure was recently described being genetically and morphologically distinct from the other members of the genus Myoictis. It is more similar to the M. wavicus.

Between 1894 and 1895, Myoictis leucura was found in Papua New Guinea, the southern side of the Central Cordillera. It normally lives in elevations between 650 meters and 1600 meters. The species inhabits mostly lowland and montane forest. Peter Dwyer has found the species to be active during the daytime and being mostly terrestrial.