A person wearing a white coat sitting at a desk in a science lab filling out paperwork. Several large jars filled with various specimens also sit on the desktop.

Kenny Travouillon
Curator of Mammalogy (Mammals) - Acting Curator of Ornithology (birds)

Qualifications

BSc (Hons), PhD

Research

  • Marsupial evolution, palaeontology and systematics.
  • Taxonomy of peramelemorphians (bandicoots and bilbies) and macropods (kangaroos and allies). 
  • Past and present distribution of marsupials.

Collections

  • Researches taxonomy of mammals through the collections. 
  • Develops collections through targeted fieldwork and collaborations.

Exhibitions and Public Programs

  • Provides IDs and advice for the public, consultants and government. 
  • Regularly presents talks and provides media coverage of work in Mammalogy section. 
  • Contributed to exhibitions in Boola Bardip (open Nov 2020)

Selected Publications

Kenny’s full publication list can be found here

2017-present

Newman-Martin, J., Travouillon, K.J., Warburton, N., Barham, M. & Blyth, A.J. 2023. Taxonomic review of the genus Dasycercus (Dasyuromorphia: Dasyuridae) using modern and subfossil material; and the description of three new species. Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, https://doi.org/10.1080/03115518.2023.2262083

Rick, K., Byrne, M., Cameron, S., Cooper, S.J.B., Dunlop, J., Hill, B., Lohr, C., Mitchell, N.J., Moritz, C., Travouillon, K.J., von Takach, B. & Ottewell, K. 2023. Population genomic diversity and structure in the golden bandicoot: a history of isolation, extirpation, and conservation. Heredity. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41437-023-00653-2

Travouillon, K.J., Cooper, C., Bouzin, J.T., Umbrello, L.S., & Lewis, S.W. 2023. All-aglow: spectral characteristics confirm widespread fluorescence for mammals. Royal Society Open Science 10, 230325.

Umbrello, L.S., Cooper, N.K., Adams, M., Travouillon, K.J., Baker, A.M., Westerman, M. & Aplin, K.P. 2023. Hiding in plain sight: two new species of diminutive marsupial (Dasyuridae: Planigale) from the Pilbara. Australia. Zootaxa 5330 (1), 001-046. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5330.1.1

McKenzie, N.L., Burbidge, A.A., Baynes, A., Gibson, L.A., Travouillon, K.J., Bullen, R.D., & Turpin, J.M. 2023. 2022 update shows Western Australia’s mammals continue to decline. Australian Mammalogy. https://doi.org/10.1071/AM23014

Travouillon, K.J. & Burbidge, A.A. 2023. ‘Nullarbor Barred Bandicoot’ in Strahan's Mammals of Australia. Eds. Baker, A.M., and Gynther, I.C. New Holland Publishers, pp193-194.

Travouillon, K.J.  & Burbidge, A.A. 2023. ‘South-eastern Striped Bandicoot’ in Strahan's Mammals of Australia. Eds. Baker, A.M., and Gynther, I.C. New Holland Publishers, pp190-191.

Travouillon, K.J., Menard, J. & Burbidge, A.A. 2023. ‘Marl’ in Strahan's Mammals of Australia. Eds. Baker, A.M., and Gynther, I.C. New Holland Publishers, pp187-188.

Travouillon, K.J.  & Burbidge, A.A. 2023. ‘Liverpool Plains Striped Bandicoot’ in Strahan's Mammals of Australia. Eds. Baker, A.M., and Gynther, I.C. New Holland Publishers, pp184-185.

Travouillon, K.J. & Warburton, N.M. 2023. ‘Quenda’ in Strahan's Mammals of Australia. Eds. Baker, A.M., and Gynther, I.C. New Holland Publishers, pp175-176.

Travouillon, K.J., Johnson, K.A. & Burbidge, A.A. 2023. ‘Yirratji’ in Strahan's Mammals of Australia. Eds. Baker, A.M., and Gynther, I.C. New Holland Publishers, pp169-170.

Travouillon, K.J., Johnson, K.A. & Burbidge, A.A. 2023. ‘Pig-footed Bandicoot’ in Strahan's Mammals of Australia. Eds. Baker, A.M., and Gynther, I.C. New Holland Publishers, pp167-168.

Travouillon, K.J. & Kear, B.P. 2023. The Australian Fossil National Species List. Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, https://doi.org/10.1080/03115518.2023.2209246

Beck, R.M.D, Louys, J., Nguyen, J.M.T., Travouillon, K.J. & Wilson, L.A.B. 2023. Australian time traveller: papers in honour of Mike Archer. Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, https://doi.org/10.1080/03115518.2023.2195912

Baker, A., Eldridge, M., Fisher, D.O., Frankham, G., Helgen, K.M., Jackson, S.M., Potter, S., Travouillon, K., & Umbrello, L. 2023. Taxonomy and diversity of living Australasian marsupials. In Cáceres, Nilton C. & Dickman, Christopher R. (Eds.) American and Australasian Marsupials: An Evolutionary, Biogeographical, and Ecological Approach. Springer, Cham, Switzerland, pp. 1-85.

Travouillon, K.J. 2023. ‘In the shadow of the thylacine’ in Thylacine, The History, Ecology and Loss of the Tasmanian Tiger. Eds. Holmes, B., and Linnard, G. CSIRO Publishing, pp159-161.

Travouillon, K.J. (2023). First fossil record of Perameles fasciata from New South Wales and Queensland: reassessment of Perameles sobbei, Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, DOI: 10.1080/03115518.2023.2175034

Louys, J., Cramb, J., Ferguson, K., Kemp, J., Wood, R., Miszkiewicz, J.J., Dias Guimarães, N.R., Higgins, P., Travouillon, K.J., Hocknull, S.A., Webb, G.E. & Price, G.J. (2023). Interim report on the vertebrate deposits recovered from the Capricorn Caves, Rockhampton, Queensland, Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, DOI: 10.1080/03115518.2022.2157486

Cooper, S.J.B., Travouillon, K.J., Helgen, K.M., Saint, K., Russell, R. & Winter J. (2023). Reassessment of the subspecific status of the Australian Wet Tropics yellow-bellied glider, Petaurus australis. Australian Mammalogy. https://doi.org/10.1071/AM22022

Travouillon, K.J. (2022). Notes on a new method to identify Golden Bandicoot and Northern Brown Bandicoot in the Kimberley region. Records of the Western Australian Museum, 37:57-60.

Shaw RE, Spencer PB, Gibson LA, Dunlop JA, Kinloch JE, Mokany K, Byrne M, Moritz C, Davie H, Travouillon KJ, Ottewell KM. Linking life history to landscape for threatened species conservation in a multiuse region. Conserv Biol. 2022 Aug 18:e13989. doi: 10.1111/cobi.13989.

Jackson, S.M., Baker, A.M., Eldridge, M.D.B., Fisher, D.O., Frankham, G.J., Lavery, T.H., MacDonald, A.J., Menkhorst, P.W., Phillips, M.J., Potter, S., Rowe, K.C., Travouillon, K.J. and Umbrello, L.S. (2022). The Importance of appropriate taxonomy in Australian mammalogy. Australian Mammalogy. Doi: 10.1071/AM22016

Thiele, K.R., Harvey, M.S., Hutchings, P., May, T.W., Melville, J., Travouillon, K.J. (2022). Introducing the Australian Journal of Taxonomy, a new, fully-online, fully open-access journal for the rapid publication of new Australian species and other taxa. Australian Journal of Taxonomy 1: 1–7. doi: https://doi.org/10.54102/ajt.qxi3r

Travouillon, K.J., Butler, K., Archer, M. and Hand, S.J. (2022). Two new species of the genus Gumardee (Marsupialia, Macropodiformes) reveal the repeated evolution of bilophodonty in kangaroos, Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology. https://doi.org/10.1080/03115518.2021.2012595.

Elliott, T.F., Travouillon, K.J., Warburton, N.M., Danks, M.A. & Vernes, K. 2021. New Guinean bandicoots: new insights into diet, dentition, and digestive tract morphology and a dietary review of all extant non-Australian Peramelemorphia. Australian Mammalogy. https://doi.org/10.1071/AM21015

Peters, C. Richter, K.K., Manne, T., Dortch, J., Paterson, A., Travouillon, K., Louys, J., Price, G.J., Petraglia, M., Crowther, A., & Boivin, N. (2021). Species identification of Australian marsupials using collagen fingerprinting. Royal Society Open Science 8, 211229. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211229

Taylor, M.C., Travouillon, K.J., Andrew, M.E., Fleming, P.A. and Warburton, N.M. (2021). Keeping an ear out: size relationship of the tympanic bullae and pinnae in bandicoots and bilbies (Marsupialia: Peramelemorphia). Current Zoology. Zoab055.

Travouillon, K.J., Beck, R.M.D. & Case, J.A. (2021). Upper Oligocene–lower-Middle Miocene peramelemorphians from the Etadunna, Namba and Wipajiri formations of South Australia. Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology. https://doi.org/10.1080/03115518.2021.1921274

Louys, J., Price, G.J. and Travouillon, K.J. (2021). Space-time equivalence in the fossil record, with a case study from Pleistocene Australia. Quaternary Science Reviews 253:106764.

Weisbecker, V., Rowe, T., Wroe, S., Macrini, T.E., Garland, K.L.S., Travouillon, K.J., Black, K., Archer, M., Hand, S.J., Berlin, J., Beck, R.M.D., Ladevèze, S., Sharp, A.C., Mardon, K., and Sherratt E. (2020). Global elongation and high shape flexibility as an evolutionary hypothesis of accommodating mammalian brains into skulls. Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.06.410928

Price, G.J., Cramb, J., Louys, J., Travouillon, K.J., Pease, E.M.A., Feng, Y.-X., Zhao, J.-X., and Irvin, D. (2020). Late Quaternary Fossil Veterbrates of the Broken River Karst Area, Northern Queensland, Australia. Records of the Australian Museum 72:193-206.

Martin, M.L., Travouillon, K.J., Fleming, P.A. and Warburton, N.M. (2020). Review of the methods used for calculating physiological cross-sectional area (PCSA) for ecological questions. Journal of Morphology. https://doi.org/10.1002/jmor.21139

Butler, K., Travouillon, K.J., Evans, A.R., Murphy, L., Price, G.J., Archer, M., Hand, S.J., and Weisbecker, V. (2020). 3D Morphometric Analysis Reveals Similar Ecomorphs for Early Kangaroos (Macropodidae) and Fanged Kangaroos (Balbaridae) from the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, Australia. Journal of Mammalian Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-020-09507-8

Travouillon, K.J., Parnaby, H. E. and Ingleby S. (2020). Neotype designation for the Australian Pig-footed Bandicoot Chaeropus ecaudatus Ogilby, 1838. Records of the Australian Museum 72(3): 77-80.

Martin, M.L., Warburton, N.M., Travouillon, K.J. and Fleming, P.A. (2019). Mechanical similarity across ontogeny of digging muscles in an Australian marsupial (Isoodon fusciventer). Journal of Morphology 2019:1–13. https://doi.org/10.1002/jmor.20954

Travouillon, K.J., Simoes, B. F., Portela Miguez, R., Brace, S., Brewer, P., Stemmer, D., Price, G.J., Cramb, J. & Louys, J. (2019). Hidden in plain sight: reassessment of the pig-footed bandicoot, Chaeropus ecaudatus (Peramelemorphia, Chaeropodidae), with a description of a new species from central Australia, and use of the fossil record to trace its past distribution. Zootaxa 4566(1): 001-069.

Eldridge, M.D.B., Beck, R.M.D., Croft, D.A., Travouillon, K.J. and Fox, B.J. (2019) An emerging consensus in the evolution, phylogeny, and systematics of marsupials and their fossil relatives (Metatheria). Journal of Mammalogy 100(3): 802-837.

Warburton, N.M., Travouillon, K.J., and Camens, A.B. (2019). Skeletal atlas of the Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus). Palaeontologia Electronica 22.2.29A: 1-56. https://doi.org/10.26879/947

Martin, M.L., Travouillon, K.J., Sherratt, E., Fleming, P.A. and Warburton, N.M. (2019). Covariation between forelimb muscle anatomy and bone shape in an Australian scratch-digging marsupial: Comparison of morphometric methods. Journal of Morphology 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1002/jmor.21074

Butler, K., Travouillon, K.J., Price, G. J., Archer, M., and Hand, S.J. (2018). Revision of Oligo-Miocene kangaroos, Ganawamaya and Nambaroo (Marsupialia: Macropodiformes, Balbaridae). Palaeontologia Electronica 21.1.8A: 1-58. https://doi.org/10.26879/747

Travouillon, K.J. and Phillips, M.J. (2018). Total evidence analysis of the phylogenetic relationships of bandicoots and bilbies (Marsupialia: Peramelemorphia): reassessment of two species and description of a new species. Zootaxa 4378:224-256.

Butler, K., Travouillon, K.J., Price, G.J., Archer, M. and Hand, S.J., (2017). Species abundance, richness and body size evolution of kangaroos (Marsupialia: Macropodiformes) throughout the Oligo-Miocene of Australia. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 487:25-36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2017.08.016

Faith, J.T., Dortch, J., Jones, C., Shulmeister, J. and Travouillon, K.J. (2017). Large mammal species richness and late Quaternary precipitation change in southwestern Australia.  Journal of Quaternary Science 32:760-769. https://doi.org/10.1002/jqs.2888

Travouillon, K.J., Louys, J., Price, G.J., Archer, M., Hand, S.J., and Muirhead, J., (2017). A review of the Pliocene bandicoots of Australia, and descriptions of new genus and species. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 37(5):e1360894. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2017.1360894

Selected publications (pre-2016)

Travouillon, K.J. (2016). Investigating dental variation in Perameles nasuta Geoffroy, 1804, with morphological evidence to raise P. nasuta pallescens Thomas, 1923 to species rank. Zootaxa 4114:351-392.

Travouillon, K.J. (2016). Oldest fossil remains of the enigmatic Pig-footed Bandicoot show rapid herbivorous evolution. Royal Society Open Science 3:160089.

Travouillon, K.J., Butler, K., Archer, M., and Hand, S. J. (2016). New material of Gumardee pascuali Flannery et al., 1983 (Marsupialia: Macropodiformes) and two new species from the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, Queensland, Australia. Memoirs of Museum Victoria 74:189-207.

Travouillon, K. J. and Cooke, B. (2016). Kangaroos and Wallabies. In: Cook, A. & Rozefelds, A. (Eds), In Search of Ancient Queensland. A Queensland Museum Discovery Guide. Queensland Museum, Brisbane, Australia, 226–227.

Warburton, N.M. and Travouillon, K.J. (2016). The biology and taxonomy of the Peramelemorphia: a review of current knowledge and future research directions. Australian Journal of Zoology 64:51-181.

Travouillon, K. J., Archer, M., Hand, S. J. and Muirhead, J. (2015). Sexually dimorphic bandicoots (Marsupialia: Peramelemorphia) from the Oligo-Miocene of Australia, first cranial ontogeny for fossil bandicoots and new species descriptions. Journal of Mammalian Evolution 22:141-167.

Travouillon, K.J., Cooke, B., Archer, M., and Hand, S. J. (2014). Revision of basal macropodids from the Riversleigh World Heritage Area with descriptions of new material of Ganguroo bilamina Cooke, 1997 and a new species. Palaeontologia Electronica 17.1:20A.

Travouillon, K.J., Hand, S. J., Archer, M., and Black, K. H. (2014). Earliest modern bandicoot and bilby (Marsupialia, Peramelidae and Thylacomyidae) from the Miocene of the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, northwestern Queensland, Australia. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 34:375-382.

Travouillon, K.J., Beck, R.M.D., Hand, S. J. and Archer, M. (2013). The oldest fossil record of bandicoots (Marsupialia; Peramelemorphia) from the late Oligocene of Australia. Palaeontologia Electronica 16.2:13A.

Travouillon, K.J., Escarguel, G., Legendre, S., Archer, M., and Hand, S.J. (2011). The use of MSR (Minimum Sample Richness) for fossil fauna comparisons. Palaeobiology 37:696–70.

Travouillon, K.J., Gurovich, Y., Beck, R.M.D., and Muirhead, J. (2010). An exceptionally well-preserved short-snouted Bandicoot (Marsupialia; Peramelemorphia) from Riversleigh’s Oligo-Miocene depostis, northwestern Queensland, Australia. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 30:1528-1546.

Travouillon, K.J., Legendre, S., Archer, M., and Hand, S.J. (2009). Palaeoecological Analyses of Riversleigh’s Oligo-Miocene Sites: Implications for Oligo-Miocene climate change in Australia. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology,Palaeoecology 276:24–37.

Travouillon, K.J., Archer, M., Legendre, S., and Hand, S.J. (2007). Finding the Minimum Sample Richness (MSR) for multivariate analyses: implications for palaeoecology. Historical Biology 19:315-320.

Travouillon, K.J., Archer, M., Hand, S.J. and Godthelp, H. (2006). Multivariate analyses of Cenozoic mammalian faunas from Riversleigh, north-western Queensland. Alcheringa Special Issue 1:323-349.

Archer, M., Arena, D. A., Bassarova, M., Beck, R., Black, K., Boles, W.E., Brewer, P., Cooke, B.N., Crosby, K., Gillespie, A., Godthelp, H., Hand, S.J., Kear, B., Louys, J, Morrell, A., Muirhead, J., Roberts, K. K., Scanlon, J. D., Travouillon, K.J., and Wroe, S. (2006). Current status of species-level representation in faunas from selected fossil localities in the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, northwestern Queensland. Alcheringa Special Issue 1:1-17.

Related Content

The tale (or tail) of an extraordinary marsupial