You could, if you really wanted to, pass the arguments as you like, and receive them differently:

sub test_args {
  my $t = pop(@_);
  my @ar = @_;
...
[download]

or even

sub test_args {
  my ($t, @ar) = (pop(@_), @_);
...
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In general, if a list you're assigning to contains an array, the array isn't going to leave anything for the variables after it.

Here's a more bletcherous way, just for interest's sake:

sub test_args {
  my (@ar, $t);
  (@ar[0..$#_-1], $t) = @_;
...
[download]

You can't declare an array slice, so the declaration had to be separated from the assignment. Since I'm assigning to a slice, there are a known number of elements in my list, which allows $t to get the leftovers. Eh, maybe it's not all that bletcherous.