Taxonomy
Four living species are known:
The recently extinct species are:
- Desert bettong (B. anhydra). This animal is only known from one specimen collected in the Tanami in 1933 and some old bones found in the Nullarbor. Scientists think it became extinct because of hunting by wild cats and foxes, and because the way fires changed its environment.
- Nullarbor dwarf bettong (B. pusilla). Known only from subfossil remains but considered to have survived until European settlement.
- Brush-tailed bettong (B. penicillata). The little bettong was once thought to be the same species as the Woylie (B. ogilbyi), but now it is recognized as a separate species.
- Little bettong (B. haoucharae). The animal is only known from old, partially fossilized remains that are not fully turned into stone, and mummified remains from the Nullarbor Plains and Great Victoria Desert.
The fossil species is:
The family tree (phylogeny) of the genus Bettongia shows that the 'brush-tailed' types of bettongs are grouped together in this genus. This group includes the species that are still alive today. Bettongia gaimardi, B. tropica and B. penicillata.
A simple way to organize both living and fossil species of the genus Bettongia is to group them together based on their shared features and evolutionary history. This arrangement includes all known species, both those alive today and those known only from fossils, showing how they are related within the genus Bettongia.
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The species Aepyprymnus rufescens is called the rufous bettong, even though it is not a member of the genus Bettongia.
