Tyler's mouse opossum (''Marmosa tyleriana'') is a

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

marsupial Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a ...

of the family Didelphidae. It lives in rainforests of the

Guiana Highlands The Guianas, sometimes called by the Spanish loan-word ''Guayanas'' (''Las Guayanas''), is a region in north-eastern South America which includes the following three territories: * French Guiana, an overseas department and region of France * ...

of southern

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

at elevations between 1300 and 2200 m. The species has only been found on three isolated

tepui A tepui , or tepuy (), is a table-top mountain or mesa found in South America, especially in Venezuela and western Guyana. The word tepui means "house of the gods" in the native tongue of the Pemon, the indigenous people who inhabit the Gran S ...

s ( Auyantepui, Marahuaca and Sarisariñama). All three of these locations are in protected areas ( Canaima, Duida-Marahuaca and Jaua-Sarisariñama national parks). The Latin species name refers to the habitat in which the opossum was first found, a '' Tyleria'' forest. In turn, both the genus ''Tyleria'' and the opossum's common name refer to Sidney F. Tyler, an American historian and photographer who helped finance the 1928-29 expedition of the American Museum of Natural History to the headwaters of the Orinoco, during which the opossum was discovered.

References

Opossums Mammals of Venezuela Endemic fauna of Venezuela Mammals described in 1931 Fauna of the Tepuis {{marsupial-stub