Extinct
The tail of this mouse made up almost ⅔ of their total length. They also had extra long ears in comparison to what you think of as normal mouse ears. Their ears were nothing in comparison to the big-eared hopping mouse, you should look those up, they are seriously adorable. Interestingly, while all the descriptions I read of them said grey with pink, most of the scientific paintings seem to have them as brown. I've obviously gone with what the description says since I believe the description was made by the man who actually studied them. Only a handful were ever studied, but I find it interesting that all of them seemed to really like raisins. They weren't considered pests like normal mice, or even like other hopping-mice. The last recorded sighting of these was in 1901 or 1902, but a piece of a skull was found in an owl pellet in 1977, so as with some other animals, I would like to think that maybe somewhere in Australia there are a few who are still going strong.
I had pet mice when I was younger. A couple of them I saved (with permission) from a science lab. I was there to dissect a cadaver and asked if I could have a couple of their new mice. They let me, and the first night back at college it terrified my poor roommate because I had to keep them in a drawer. I had to take them home after that since you were only allowed fish if you had a pet in the dorms. They lived a short time sadly, both died of cancer. I raised some pinky mice once. My husband, before I married him, was rooming with a guy from college. They had to pull down a shed for the property owner and found the mice under the shed. They knew I would happily take them. It was neat because while they would roll onto their back in my hand to more easily drink from the eye dropper I had, letting me hold them and pet them, anyone else though would get bitten if they got too near the mice. Once they were old enough to fend for themselves I let them go in an area near our home that was not a crop type field (an abandoned lot actually) with lots of space for them to hide and forage.
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