The bushy-tailed opossum (''Glironia venusta'') is an

opossum Opossums () are members of the marsupial order Didelphimorphia () endemic to the Americas. The largest order of marsupials in the Western Hemisphere, it comprises 126 species in 18 genera. Opossums originated in South America and entered North A ...

from

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. It was first described by English zoologist

Oldfield Thomas Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas (21 February 1858 – 16 June 1929) was a British zoologist. Career Thomas worked at the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum on mammals, describing about 2,000 new species and subspecies for ...

in 1912. It is a medium-sized

characterized by a large, oval, dark ears, fawn to cinnamon coat with a buff to gray underside, grayish limbs, and a furry tail. Little is known of the behavior of the bushy-tailed opossum; less than 25 specimens are known. It appears to be

arboreal Arboreal locomotion is the locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may scale trees only occasionally (scansorial), but others are exclusively arboreal. The hab ...

(tree-living),

nocturnal Nocturnality is a ethology, behavior in some non-human animals characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is "nocturnal", versus diurnality, diurnal meaning the opposite. Nocturnal creatur ...

(active mainly at night) and solitary. The diet probably comprises insects, eggs and plant material. This opossum has been captured from heavy, humid,

tropical forest Tropical forests are forested ecoregions with tropical climates – that is, land areas approximately bounded by the Tropic of Cancer, tropics of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, Capricorn, but possibly affected by other factors such as prevailing ...

s; it has been reported from

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

and

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

. The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

classifies it as

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...

Taxonomy and etymology

The bushy-tailed opossum is the sole member of ''Glironia'', and is placed in the family Didelphidae. It was first described by English zoologist

in 1912. Earlier, ''Glironia'' was considered part of the subfamily Didelphinae. A 1955 revision of marsupial phylogeny grouped '' Caluromys'', ''

Caluromysiops The black-shouldered opossum (''Caluromysiops irrupta''), also known as the white-eared opossum, is an opossum known from western Brazil and southeastern Peru. It was first described by Colin Campbell Sanborn, curator of Field Museum of Natura ...

'', '' Dromiciops'' (monito del monte) and ''Glironia'' under a single subfamily, Microbiotheriinae, noting the dental similarities among these. A 1977 study argued that these similarities are the result of

convergent evolution Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last comm ...

, and placed ''Caluromys'', ''Caluromysiops'' and ''Glironia'' in a new subfamily,

Caluromyinae Caluromyinae is a subfamily of opossums. It includes the extant genera '' Caluromys'' and '' Caluromysiops'', as well as the extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become ...

. In another similar revision, the bushy-tailed opossum was placed in its own subfamily, Glironiinae. The

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...

below, based on a 2016 study, shows the

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

relationships of the bushy-tailed opossum. The generic name is a compound of the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

("dormouse") and

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

suffix -''ia'' (pertains to "quality" or "condition"). The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

, ''venusta'', means "charming" in Latin.

Description

The bushy-tailed opossum is a medium-sized

characterized by a large, oval, dark ears, fawn to cinnamon coat with a buff to gray underside, grayish limbs, and, as its name suggests, a furry tail. The face is marked by two bold, dark stripes extending from either side of the nose through the eyes to the back of the ears. These stripes are separated by a thinner grayish white band, that runs from the midline of the nose to the nape of the neck. The texture of hairs ranges from soft to woolly; the hairs on the back measure . Five nipples can be seen on the abdomen; it lacks a marsupium. The tail, long, becomes darker and less bushy towards the tip. Basically the same in color as the coat, the tip may be completely white or have diffuse white hairs. The head-and-body length is typically between , the hindfeet measure and the ears are long. It weighs nearly . The

dental formula Dentition pertains to the development of teeth and their arrangement in the mouth. In particular, it is the characteristic arrangement, kind, and number of teeth in a given species at a given age. That is, the number, type, and morpho-physiology ...

is – typical of all didelphids. Canines and molars are poorly developed. Differences from '' Marmosa'' species (mouse opossums) include smaller ears, longer and narrower rostrum, and greater erectness in canines. The monito del monte has a similar bushy tail. A study of the male reproductive system noted that the bushy-tailed opossum has two pairs of bulbourethral glands, as in ''Caluromys'' and '' Gracilinanus'', but unlike other didelphids that have three pairs. The urethral grooves of the glans penis end near the tips.

Ecology and behavior

Little is known of the behavior of the bushy-tailed opossum. Less than 25 specimens are known. A study noted the morphological features of the opossum that could allow for powerful movements during locomotion, and deduced that it is

(tree-living). It appears to be solitary and

(active mainly at night). An individual was observed running through and leaping over vines, in a manner typical of opossums, probably hunting for insects. Its diet may be similar to that of the mouse opossums – insects, eggs and plant material.

Distribution and status

The bushy-tailed opossum has been captured from heavy, humid,

s, and has not been recorded outside forests. It occurs up to an altitude of above sea level. The range has not been precisely determined; specimens have been collected from regions of

and

. The

classifies the bushy-tailed opossum as

, given its wide distribution and presumably large population. The major threats to its survival are deforestation and human settlement.

Taxonomy and etymology

Description

Ecology and behavior

Distribution and status

References

Further reading