Marsupials are a diverse group of mammals belonging to the infraclass Marsupialia. They are primarily 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.
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 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.
Petauroidea is a superfamily of marsupials from Australia and New Guinea. It is part of the suborder Phalangeriformes within the order Diprotodontia, which also includes, among others, wombats, kangaroos, cuscuses. The superfamily Phalangeroidea, including cuscuses and brushtail possums and pygmy possums, is the immediate sister group of the Petauroidea. The earliest fossils from this superfamily are from the Oligocene of the Geilston Bay fossil site in Tasmania.
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.
