Leporillus apicalis Gould, 1853a:126
Lesser stick-nest rat, White-tipped stick-nest rat, White-tailed stick-nest rat, White-tipped hapalotis, White-tipped house-building rat (used by Wood Jones, 1925:334), White-tailed house-building rat (Brazenor, 1950:63; Calaby, 1969), White-tipped tree-rat (Troughton, 1923:33; Mahoney, 1982:25), White-tipped jerboa-rat (Ogilby, 1892:116), Tillikin (Krefft, 1866:4), Djooyalpi (Crowther, 2013), karnanyuru (Barngarla (Eyre Peninsula); Schürmann, 1844), ?ilyki (Tunbridge, 1991:77)
Taxonomy & Nomenclature
Synonym/s: Hapalotis apicalis Gould, 1853a:126 (basionym); Conilurus apicalis (Gould, 1853a:126); Conilurus apicalis (Gould, 1851(:iii?)) (cited by Ogilby, 1892:116)
Conservation Status
Extinct (Burbidge, 2024)
Last record: 1933 (Robinson et al., 2000; Johnson, 2006:169; Fisher & Blomberg, 2012; Lee et al., 2017); July 1933 (Tindale, 1933); 1970?
IUCN status: Extinct
The last reliable record of this species was in 1933, when two specimens were captured west of Mount Crombie by A. Brumby of Ernabella (Finlayson, 1961; Ride, 1970:203). However, several possible records since then hint at its possible continued survival. For example, Firth (1979) reports Leporillus sp. stick nests from the Gibson Desert in 1958. Another report from Western Australia in 1970 may possibly be of this species (Robinson, 2008; Robinson & Burbidge, 2008). However, the species' sole surviving congener (L. conditor) is now limited to offshore islands and ex situ mainland populations, and thus any mainland record of Leporillus sp. would have to rule out L. conditor.
Distribution
New South Wales (prehistoric), Northern Territory, South Australia, Victoria & Western Australia (incl. prehistoric; Bowdler, 1995), Australia
Type locality: South Australia (Mahoney & Richardson, 1988:159)
Anatomy & Morphology
Body mass: 150gm (Johnson, 2006:169).
Biology & Ecology
"Ecology: terrestrial, folivore"
(Mahoney & Richardson, 1988:159)
Hypodigm
"Type data: holotype, whereabouts unknown (once in the possession of John Gould)" (Mahoney & Richardson, 1988:159)
Other specimens:
FMNH 16628
FMNH 18725 to 18732
MV C90 (Roycroft et al., 2021, 2022)
Media
References
Original scientific description:
Gould, John. (1853). Remarks on the genus Hapalotis. Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1851: 126-127.
Other references:
Abbott, I. 2002. Origin and spread of the cat, Felis catus, on mainland Australia, with a discussion on the magnitude of its early impact on native fauna. Wildlife Research 29: 51-74.
Abbott, Ian. (2008). Historical perspectives of the ecology of some conspicuous vertebrate species in south-west Western Australia. Conservation Science W. Aust. 6(3): 1-214.
Anonymous. (1973). Additional protection for rare fauna. S.W.A.N.S. 4(2): 31-33.
Anonymous. (1977). Terrestrial native mammals of Western Australia. S.W.A.N.S. 7(1): 7-8. [a mere listing as being native to WA]
Bamford, Mandy et al. (2009). Mammals of the Avon Region. Bentley, W.A.: Department of Environment and Conservation. 132 pp. [pp. 106-107]
Baynes, Alexander. (1984). Native mammal remains from Wilgie Mia Aboriginal Ochre Mine: evidence of the pre-European fauna of the western arid zone. Records of the Western Australian Museum 11(3): 297-310.
Baynes, A., and Johnson, K.A. 1996. The contributions of the Horn Expedition and cave deposits to knowledge of the original mammal fauna of central Australia. In: S.R. Morton and D.J. Mulvaney (eds), Exploring central Australia: Society, the environment and the 1894 Horn Expedition, pp. 168-186. Surrey Beatty and Sons, Chipping Norton.
Baynes, Alexander and Jones, Barbara. (1993). The mammals of Cape Range peninsula, Western Australia, pp. 207-226. In: Humphreys, W. F. (ed.). The Biogeography of Cape Range, Western Australia. Perth: Western Australian Museum.
Bennett, Andrew F., Lumsden, Linda F. and Menkhorst, Peter W. (2006). Mammals of the Mallee Region, Victoria: past, present and future. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 118(2): 259-280.
Bowdler, Sandra. (1995). The excavation of two small rockshelters at Monkey Mia, Shark Bay, Western Australia. Australian Archaeology 40: 1-13.
Braithwaite, R.W., Morton, S.R., Burbidge, A.A. and Calaby, J.H. 1995. Australian names for Australian rodents. Australian Nature Conservation Agency in association with CSIRO Australia, Canberra.
Brazenor, C. W. (1950). The Mammals of Victoria: and the Dental Characteristics of Monotremes and Australian Marsupials (National Museum of Victoria Australia Handbook No. 1). Melbourne: Brown, Prior, Anderson. [p. 63]
Burbidge, Andrew A. (2024). Australian terrestrial mammals: how many modern extinctions? Australian Mammalogy. https://doi.org/10.1071/AM23037
Burbidge, A. A and Fuller, P. J. (1979). Mammals of the Warburton region, Western Australia. Rec. West. Aust. Mus. 8(1): 57-73.
Burbidge, Andrew A. and Fuller, Phillip J. (1984). Finding out about Desert Mammals. S.W.A.N.S. 14(1): 9-13.
Burbidge, Andrew A., Fuller, P. J. and McKenzie, N. L. (1995). Vertebrate fauna. In: Keighery, G. J., McKenzie, N. L. and Hall, N. J. (eds.). The Biological Survey of the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. Part 12. Barlee–Menzies Study Area. Records of the Western Australian Museum, Supplement 49: 208-245.
Burbidge, A.A., Johnson, K.A., Fuller, P.J. and Southgate, R. I. (1988). Aboriginal knowledge of the mammals of the central deserts of Australia. Australian Wildlife Research 15: 9-39.
Burbidge, Andrew A. and McKenzie, Norman L. (1989). Patterns in the modern decline of western Australia's vertebrate fauna: Causes and conservation implications. Biological Conservation 50(1-4): 143-198. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0006-3207(89)90009-8
Burbidge, A.A., McKenzie, N.L., Brennan, K.E.C., Woinarski, J. C. Z., Dickman, C. R., Baynes, A., Gordon, G., Menkhorst, P.W. and Robinson, A.C. 2009. Conservation status and biogeography of Australia’s terrestrial mammals. Australian Journal of Zoology 56: 411-422.
Burbidge, A. A., McKenzie, N. L., Chapman, A. and Lambert, P. M. (1976). The wildlife of some existing and proposed reserves in the Great Victoria and Gibson Deserts, Western Australia. Wildl. Res. Bull. West. Aust. 5: 1-16.
Calaby, J. H. (1969). Australian Mammals since 1770. Australian Natural History 16(8): 271-275.
Cole, J. and Woinarski, J.C.Z. 2000. Rodents of the arid Northern Territory: conservation status and distribution. Wildlife Research 27: 437-449.
Copley, Peter. (1988). The Stick-nest Rats of Australia, a final report to World Wildlife Fund (Australia). Adelaide: National Parks and Wildlife Service & Department of Environment & Planning, South Australia.
Copley, Peter. (1999). Natural histories of Australia’s stick-nest rats, genus Leporillus (Rodentia : Muridae). Wildlife Research 26(4): 513-539. [Abstract]
Copley, P.B., Baker, L.M., Nesbitt, B.J. and Foulkes, J.N. 2003. Mammals. In: A.C. Robinson, P.B. Copley, P D. Canty, L.M. Baker and B.J. Nesbitt (eds), A biological survey of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands, South Australia, 1991 - 2001, pp. 197-241. Department of Environment and Heritage, Adelaide.
Crowther, Mathew. (2013). Australian endangered species: Lesser Stick-nest Rat. The Conversation, 3 October, available online: http://theconversation.com/australian-endangered-species-lesser-stick-nest-rat-18614
CR Dickman, K-P Leung & SM Van Dyck. (2000). Status, ecological attributes and conservation of native rodents in Queensland. Wildlife Research 27: 333.
DEECA [Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action]. (2023). Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 Threatened List: June 2023. Published report by The State of Victoria Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, Melbourne, Victoria.
Douglas, A. M. (1980). Our dying fauna: a personal perspective on a changing environment. Perth, Western Australia: Creative Research, association with Biological Sciences. [possible reports of the persistence of the Lesser Stick-nest Rat]
Ellis, Murray and Henle, Klaus. (1988). The mammals of Kinchega National Park western New South Wales. Australian Zoologist 25(1): 1-5.
Finlayson, Hedley Herbert. (1941). On central Australian mammals. Part II: The Muridae. Trans. R. Soc. S. Aust. 65: 215-232.
Finlayson, Hedley Herbert. (1961). On central Australian mammals. Part IV. The distribution and status of central Australian species. Records of the South Australian Museum 14: 141-191.
Fisher, Diana O. and Blomberg, Simon P. (2012). Inferring Extinction of Mammals from Sighting Records, Threats, and Biological Traits. Conservation Biology 26(1): 57-67. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2011.01797.x
Fisher, Diana O. and Humphreys, Aelys M. (2024). Evidence for modern extinction in plants and animals. Biological Conservation 298: 110772. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2024.110772
Flannery, T. and Schouten, P. 2001. A gap in nature: discovering the world’s extinct animals. Text Publishing, Melbourne.
Freudenthal, M. and Martín-Suárez, E. (2013). Estimating body mass of fossil rodents. Scripta Geologica 145: 1-130. [0.150 kg estimate]
Frith, H. J. (1979). Wildlife Conservation, revised edition. Angus & Robertson. xiv + 416 pp. [p. 42, 108, pl. 58 (between p. 258/259), p. 295, p. 306 (species account)]
Giles, E. (1889). Australia twice traversed, being a narrative compiled from the journals of five expeditions into central South Australia and Western Australia, 1872-76. Vol. 1. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington Limited.
Goodwin, Harry A. and Goodwin, J. M. (1973). List of mammals which have become extinct or are possibly extinct since 1600. Int. Union Conserv. Nat. Occas. Pap. 8: 1-20.
Gould, John. (1853b). The Mammals of Australia, Volume 3, Part 5. London: John Gould.
Gratte, S. (1972). The Stick-nest Rat Leporillus conditor in the Gibson Desert. Western Australian Naturalist 12(3): 50-51.
Henry-Hall, N.J. (1990). Nature conservation reserves in the Eastern Goldfields, Western Australia (southern two-thirds of CTRC System 11). Unpublished report submitted to the EPA Red Book Task Force. Environmental Protection Authority, Perth, Western Australia. [Appendix 13]
Hoser, Raymond T. (1991). Endangered Animals of Australia. Mosman, NSW: Pierson & Co. 240 pp. [pp. 158]
How, R. A., Cooper, N. K. and Bannister, J. L. (2001). Checklist of the mammals of Western Australia. Records of the Western Australian Museum Supplement No. 63: 91-98.
Iredale, Tom and Troughton, Ellis Le Geyt. (1934). A check-list of the mammals recorded from Australia. Mem. Aust. Mus. 6: i-xii, 1-122.
Jackson, Stephen and Groves, Colin. (2015). Taxonomy of Australian Mammals. Clayton South, Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing. 529 pp. [p. 194]
Johnson, Chris N. (2006). Australia's Mammal Extinctions: A 50 000 Year History. Port Melbourne, Victoria: Cambridge University Press. x + 278 pp. [p. 169, pl. 31]
Kendrick, George W. and Porter, Jennifer K. (1974). Remains of a Thylacine (Marsupialia: Dasyuroidea) and other fauna from caves in the Cape Range, Western Australia. Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia 56(4): 116-122.
Krefft, Gerard. (1862). The vertebrated animals of the Lower Murray and Darling, their habits, economy, and geographical distribution. [i]The Sydney Morning Herald[/i], 24th October, p. 2.
Krefft, Gerard. (1864). Catalogue of Mammalia in the Collection of the Australian Museum. Sydney: Australian Museum.
Krefft, Gerard. (1866). On the vertebrated animals of the lower Murray and Darling, their habits, economy, and geographical distribution. Transactions of the Philosophical Society of New South Wales 1862-1865: 1-33.
Krefft, Gerard. (1871). The mammals of Australia, illustrated by Miss Harriet Scott, and Mrs. Helena Forde, for the Council of Education; with a short account of all the hitherto described. Sydney: Government Printer.
Lee, A.K. 1995. The Action Plan for Australian Rodents. Australian Department of the Environment and Heritage, Canberra, Australia.
Lee, T. E., Fisher, D. O., Blomberg, S. P. and Wintle, B. A. (2017). Extinct or still out there? Disentangling influences on extinction and rediscovery helps to clarify the fate of species on the edge. Global Change Biology 23(2): 621-634. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13421
Lee, T. E., M. A. McCarthy, B. A. Wintle, M. Bode, D. L. Roberts, and M. A. Burgman. 2014. Inferring extinctions from sighting records of variable reliability. Journal of Applied Ecology 51:251-258.
Lundelius, Ernest L. Jr. (1957). Additions to knowledge of the ranges of Western Australian mammals. The Western Australian Naturalist 5(7): 173-182..
Lundelius, Ernest L. (1963). Vertebrate remains from the Nullarbor Caves, Western Australia. Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia 46: 75-80.
Lundelius, Ernest L. and Turnbull, William D. (1999). Leporillus (Rodentia: Muridae) from Madura Cave, W.A. Proceedings of The Linnean Society of New South Wales 121: 129-146.
Mahoney, J. A. (1975). The identity and status of Thomas' "lectotype" of Leporillus apicalis (Gould, 1853) (Rodentia: Muridae). Transactions of The Royal Society of South Australia 99: 101-104.
Mahoney, J. A. (1982). Identities of the rodents (Muridae) listed in TL Mitchell's " Three expeditions into the interior of eastern Australia, with descriptions of the recently explored region of Australia Felix, and of the present colony of New South Wales" (1st ed., 1838; 2nd ed., 1839). Australian Mammalogy 5(1): 15-36.
Mahoney, J. A. and Richardson, B. J. (1988). Muridae, pp. 154-192. In: Walton, D. W. (ed.). Zoological Catalogue of Australia. Volume 5. Mammalia. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. x + 273 pp. [p. 159-160]
McDowell, M. C., Baynes, A., Medlin, G. C. and Prideaux, G. J. (2012). The impact of European colonization on the late-Holocene non-volant mammals of Yorke Peninsula, South Australia. The Holocene 22(12): 1441-1450.
Lynne McCarthy, Lesley Head and Jay Quade. (1996). Holocene palaeoecology of the northern Flinders Ranges, South Australia, based on stick-nest rat (Leporillus spp.) middens: a preliminary overview. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 123(1-4): 205-218. [Abstract]
Menkhorst, P. W. (ed.). (1995). Mammals of Victoria: distribution, ecology and conservation. Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 359 pp.
Menkhorst, Peter W. (2009). Blandowski’s mammals: Clues to a lost world. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 121(1): 61-89.
Monks, Carly Elizabeth. (2018). Fire and Fauna: Investigating Aboriginal land management in the Northern Sawn Coastal Plain, Western Australia. BA (Hons) thesis, School of Social Sciences, Archaeology, The University of Western Australia. xvii + 346 pp.
Morton, S.R. 1990. The impact of European settlement on the vertebrate animals of arid Australia: a conceptual model. Proceedings of the Ecological Society of Australia 16: 201-213.
Nowak, R.M. 1999. Walker's Mammals of the World. Sixth edition. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London.
Ogilby, J. Douglas. (1892). Catalogue of Australian Mammals, with Introductory Notes on General Mammalogy. Australian Museum, Sydney: Catalogue No. 16: viii + 142 pp. [p. 116]
Parker, Shane A. (1973). An annotated checklist of the native land mammals of the Northern Territory. Records of the South Australian Museum 16(11): 1-57.
Pearson, S. (1999). Late Holocene biological records from the middens of stick-nest rats in the central Australian arid zone. Quaternary International 59(1): 39-46.
S. G. Pearson, A. Baynes and B. E. Triggs. (2001). The record of fauna, and accumulating agents of hair and bone, found in middens of stick-nest rats (Genus Leporillus) (Rodentia : Muridae). Wildlife Research 28(4): 435-444. [Abstract]
Pearson, S. and Dodson, J.R. 1991. Stick-nest rat middens as sources of palaeoecological data in Australian deserts. Quaternary Research 39: 347-354.
Pearson, S., Lawson, E., Lesley, L., McCarthy, L. and Dodson, J. (1999). The spatial and temporal patterns of stick-nest rat middens in Australia. Radiocarbon 41(3): 295-308.
Ride, W. D. L. (1970). A Guide to the Native Mammals of Australia. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Robinson, A. C. (1983). Lesser Stick-nest Rat, Leporillus apicalis, p. 425. In: Strahan, Ronald M. (ed.). The Australian Museum Complete Book of Australian Mammals. The National Photographic Index of Australian Wildlife. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.
Robinson, A. C. (1995). Lesser Stick-nest Rat, Leporillus apicalis. Pp. 558-559, in Mammals of Australia (R. Strahan, ed.). Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 756 pp.
Robinson, A. C. (2008). Lesser Stick-nest Rat, Leporillus apicalis. In: S. Van Dyck and R. Strahan (eds), The mammals of Australia. Third Edition, pp. 585-586. Reed New Holland, Sydney, Australia.
Robinson, A. C. (2023). Lesser Stick-nest Rat, Leporillus apicalis, pp. 413-414. In: Baker, Andrew M. and Gynther, Ian C. (eds.). Strahan’s Mammals of Australia (4th ed.). Wahroonga, NSW: Reed New Holland Publishers. 848 pp.
Robinson, A.C., Kemper, C.M., Medlin, G.C. and Watts, C.H.S., 2000. The rodents of South Australia. Wildlife Research 27: 379-404.
Robinson-Rechavi, M., L. Ponger, and D. Mouchiroud. 2000. Nuclear gene LCAT supports rodent monophyly. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 17:1410-1412. [relevant citation?]
Roycroft, Emily et al. (2021). Museum genomics reveals the rapid decline and extinction of Australian rodents since European settlement. PNAS 118(27): e2021390118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2021390118
Roycroft, Emily et al. (2022). New Guinea uplift opens ecological opportunity across a continent. Current Biology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.08.021
Schürmann, C. W. (1844). Vocabulary of the Parnkalla Language Spoken by the Natives Inhabiting the Western Shores of Spencer's Gulf etc. Adelaide: Thomas.
Seebeck, John Hilary. (1995). Terrestrial mammals in Victoria–a history of discovery. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 107(1): 11-23.
Seebeck, John Hilary, WIlson, Barbara A. and Menkhorst, Peter W. (2003). Conservation and management of hydromyine rodents in Victoria, Australia, 89-94. In: Grant R. Singleton, Lyn A. Hinds, Charles J. Krebs and Dave M. Spratt, 2003. Rats, mice and people: rodent biology and management. ACIAR Monograph No. 96. 564 pp.
Spencer, W. B. (1896). Mammalia. In: Spencer, W. B. (ed.). Report on the work of the Horn Scientific Expedition to Central Australia, Pt. 2: 1-52.
Thomas, Oldfield. (1906). On the generic arrangement of the Australian rats hitherto referred to Conilurus, with remarks on the structure and evolution of their molar cusps. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (7) 17: 81-85.
Thomas, Oldfield. (1921a). Notes on Australasian rats, with a selection of lectotypes of Australasian Muridae. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (9) 8: 425-433.
Thomas, Oldfield. (1921b). [title?]. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. 1921: 619.
Thornback, Jane and Jenkins, Martin (compilers). (1982). The IUCN Mammal Red Data Book. Part 1: Threatened Mammalian Taxa of the Americas and the Australasian Zoogeographic Region (Excluding Cetacea). Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. 516 pp.
Tindale, Norman B. (1933). Original journal. Anthropological expedition to Mann Range – 1933. Anthropological Archives, South Australian Museum. Tindale Journal Index No. AA 338/1/9. (Includes x4 reels film titled: ‘A day in the life of the Pitjantjatjara’, and sound recordings).
Troughton, Ellis Le Geyt. (1923). A revision of the rats of the genus Leporillus and the status of Hapalotis personata Krefft. Records of the Australian Museum 14(1): 23-41.
Troughton, Ellis Le Geyt. (1924). The Stick-Nest Building Rats of Australia. The Australian Museum Magazine 2(1): 18-22.
Troughton, Ellis Le Geyt. (1941). Furred Animals of Australia. Sydney: Angus and Robertson Ltd.
Tunbridge, Dorothy. (1991). The Story of the Flinders Ranges Mammals. Kenthurst: Kangaroo Press. 96 pp. [p. 15, p. 20, pp. 77-80 (species account)]
Turvey, Samuel T. (2009). Holocene mammal extinctions, pp. 41-61. In: Turvey, Samuel T. (ed.). Holocene Extinctions. Oxford, UK & New York, USA: Oxford University Press. xii + 352 pp.
Turvey, Samuel T. and Fritz, Susanne A. (2011). The ghosts of mammals past: biological and geographical patterns of global mammalian extinction across the Holocene. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 366(1577): 2564-2576. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2011.0020 [Supplementary Information]
Wakefield, Norman A. (1966a). Mammals of the Blandowski Expedition to north-western Victoria, 1856–57. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 79(2): 371-391.
Wakefield, N. A. (1966b). Mammals recorded for the mallee, Victoria. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 79(2): 627-636.
Watts, C. H. S. (1979). The status of endangered Australian rodents, pp. ?-?. In: Tyler, Michael J. (ed.). The Status of Endangered Australasian Wildlife. Adelaide: Royal Zoological Society of South Australia.
Watts, C. H. S. and Aslin, H. J. (1981). The Rodents of Australia. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.
Watts, C. H. S., Baverstock, P. R. and Birrell, J. and Krieg, M. (1992). Phylogeny of the Australian Rodents (Muridae) - a Molecular Approach Using Microcomplement Fixation of Albumin. Australian Journal of Zoology 40(1): 81-90. [Abstract]
Watts, C.H.S. and Eves, B.M. (1976). Notes on the nests and diets of the white-tailed stick-nest rat Leporillus apicalis in northern South Australia. South Australian Naturalist 51(1): 1,3,9-12.
Webeck, K and Pearson, S. (2005). Stick-nest rat middens and a late-Holocene record of White Range, central Australia. The Holocene 15(3): 466-471. [Abstract]
Williams, L. M. (1995). Lesser stick-nest rat, Leporillus apicalis. Pp. 205-206, in Mammals of Victoria, distribution, ecology and conservation (P. W. Menkhorst, ed.). Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 360 pp.
Wilson, D.E. & Reeder, D.M. (2005). Mammal species of the world: a taxonomic and geographic reference. Third edition. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.
Woinarski, John C. Z., Braby, M. F., Burbidge, A. A., Coates, D., Garnett, S. T., Fensham, R. J., Legge, S. M., McKenzie, N. L., Silcock, J L. and Murphy, B. P. (2019). Reading the black book: The number, timing, distribution and causes of listed extinctions in Australia. Biological Conservation 239: 108261. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.108261
Woinarski, J. & Burbidge, A.A. 2016a. Leporillus apicalis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T11633A22457421. Downloaded on 25 July 2016.
Woinarski, J. & Burbidge, A.A. 2016b. Leporillus apicalis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T11633A22457421. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-1.RLTS.T11633A22457421.en. Accessed on 18 June 2022.
Wood Jones, Frederic. (1925). The Mammals of South Australia. Part III. (Conclusion) Containing the Monodelphia. Adelaide: Government Printer. 3: 271-458. [21 December 1925] [p. 334-336 (species account)]
http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/wildlife/animals/threatened/pdf/mammals/lesser_sticknestrat_ex.pdf
http://theconversation.com/australian-endangered-species-lesser-stick-nest-rat-18614
https://extinctanimals.proboards.com/thread/7128/leporillus-apicalis-lesser-stick-nest