Marsupials are a diverse group of mammals belonging to the infraclass Marsupialia. They are natively found in Australasia, Wallacea, and the Americas. One of the defining features of marsupials is their unique reproductive strategy, where the young are born in a relatively undeveloped state and then nurtured within a pouch on their mother's abdomen.
Phalangeriformes is a paraphyletic suborder of about 70 species of small to medium-sized arboreal marsupials native to Australia, New Guinea, and Sulawesi. The species are commonly known as possums, gliders, and cuscus. The common name "possum" for various Phalangeriformes species derives from the creatures' resemblance to the opossums of the Americas. However, although opossums are also marsupials, Australasian possums are more closely related to other Australasian marsupials such as kangaroos.
The common brushtail possum is a nocturnal, semiarboreal marsupial of the family Phalangeridae, native to Australia and invasive in New Zealand, and the second-largest of the possums.
The pouch is a distinguishing feature of female marsupials, monotremes ; the name marsupial is derived from the Latin marsupium, meaning "pouch". This is due to the occurrence of epipubic bones, a pair of bones projecting forward from the pelvis. Marsupials give birth to a live but relatively undeveloped foetus called a joey. When the joey is born it crawls from inside the mother to the pouch. The pouch is a fold of skin with a single opening that covers the teats. Inside the pouch, the blind offspring attaches itself to one of the mother's teats and remains attached for as long as it takes to grow and develop to a juvenile stage.
The scaly-tailed possum is found in northwestern Australia, where it is restricted to the Kimberley.
The short-eared possum is a species of marsupial in the family Phalangeridae, endemic to Australia. Found north of Sydney, New South Wales, on Australia’s eastern coast, the species was once classed under the mountain brushtail possum, its closest relative.
The mountain brushtail possum, or southern bobuck, is a nocturnal, semi-arboreal marsupial of the family Phalangeridae native to southeastern Australia. It was not described as a separate species until 2002.
The Phalangeridae are a family of mostly nocturnal marsupials native to Australia, New Guinea, and Eastern Indonesia, including the cuscuses, brushtail possums, and their close relatives. Considered a type of possum, most species are arboreal, and they inhabit a wide range of forest habitats from alpine woodland to eucalypt forest and tropical jungle. Many species have been introduced to various non-native habitats by humans for thousands of years.
Epipubic bones are a pair of bones projecting forward from the pelvic bones of modern marsupials, monotremes and fossil mammals like multituberculates, and even basal eutherians . They first occur in non-mammalian cynodonts such as tritylodontids, suggesting that they are a synapomorphy between them and Mammaliformes.
The northern brushtail possum is a nocturnal marsupial inhabiting northern Australia. The northern brushtail possum is sometimes considered a species; however, more often than not is considered a subspecies of the common brushtail possum.
The coppery brushtail possum is a species of marsupial possum in the family Phalangeridae. Coppery brushtails are found within the Atherton Tablelands area of Queensland, in northeastern Australia. These mammals inhabit rainforest ecosystems, living within the tree canopy. Though they have a restricted distribution, they are locally common. This population is often considered a subspecies of T. vulpecula.
The Arnhem Land tropical savanna is a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands ecoregion in Australia's Northern Territory.
Janine Deakin is a professor at the University of Canberra and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology. She is a geneticist with expertise in the areas of comparative genomics, epigenetics, genetic immunology and genome structure and regulation. A majority of her work has focused on the Australian marsupials and monotremes where her cytogenetic and molecular research on marsupial chromosomes and development of strategies to map genomes has provided important insight into the evolution of mammalian genomes.
