The brush-tailed rabbit rat (Conilurus penicillatus) is a species of rodent in the family Muridae.

[2] Morphological analysis established three subspecies of C. penicillatus, of which one is on Papua New Guinea and two are present within Australia: one on the Tiwi Islands off the coast of the Northern Territory, and another on the Australian mainland.

[5] This may make the brush-tailed rabbit-rat more susceptible to predation and destruction by high-intensity savanna fires than these species.

[6] Population declines are not limited to the mainland, with one study finding a 64% reduction in trapping success on the Tiwi Islands between the year 2002 and 2015.

This suggests that individuals tend to disperse much smaller distances than the co-occurring northern quoll (Dasyurus hallucatus), for which significant spatial autocorrelation exists at 500 km.