The Telefomin cuscus (''Phalanger matanim'') is a critically endangered possum found on

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torres ...

. It is named after the Telefol ethnic group, who hunted the animal long before it was identified scientifically by the

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and d ...

Tim Flannery Timothy Fridtjof Flannery (born 28 January 1956) is an Australian mammalogist, palaeontologist, environmentalist, conservationist, explorer, author, science communicator, activist and public scientist. He was awarded Australian of the Yea ...

. It is believed to live only in the extremely restricted range of one valley's oak forests at altitudes between 1500 and 2000 m along a single river in the middle of Papua New Guinea: the Nong River Valley north of Telefomin. After 1997's drought, extremely cold weather ("bitter frosts") which killed the trees, and resulting wildfires, these forests were destroyed, which Flannery believes might have resulted in the species' extinction.

Habitat

This cuscus can or has been found in the areas of

Telefomin Telefomin is a station town on the border of Sandaun and Western Provinces in Papua New Guinea. The town started during the Second World War after Mick Leahy was assigned to engineer an air-strip in 1944 for the United States for use against th ...

and Tifalmin, and

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

. It might be found even further northeast or west of the known collection areas. The only place where it is known with certainty was largely destroyed by a fire in 1998 which was caused by a drought during an

El Niño El Niño (; ; ) is the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and is associated with a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific (approximately between the International Date ...

References

Possums Mammals of Papua New Guinea Mammals described in 1987 Marsupials of New Guinea Taxa named by Tim Flannery {{Diprotodont-stub