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Distoechurus Jeanesorum
The feather-tailed possum (''Distoechurus pennatus'') is a species of marsupial in the family Acrobatidae. It is found in West Papua and Papua New Guinea. It is not to be confused with the feathertail glider, the only other species in the family Acrobatidae. Distribution It is found in most of Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ..., with the exception of the southern lowlands. It lives in almost all forest types up to 1900 metres, including disturbed forest and gardens. Physical description The head and body length is about 100 to 120 mm and the tail is 123 to 155 mm, making an overall length 223 to 275 mm. The tongue is about 21 mm long and the dorsal side of the tongue is covered in a mat of small, backward-pointing papillae (bristles) to enable th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wilhelm Peters
Wilhelm Karl Hartwich (or Hartwig) Peters (22 April 1815 – 20 April 1883) was a German natural history, naturalist and explorer. He was assistant to the anatomist Johannes Peter Müller and later became curator of the Natural History Museum, Berlin, Berlin Zoological Museum. Encouraged by Müller and the explorer Alexander von Humboldt, Peters travelled to Mozambique via Angola in September 1842, exploring the coastal region and the Zambesi River. He returned to Berlin with an enormous collection of natural history specimens, which he then described in ''Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mossambique... in den Jahren 1842 bis 1848 ausgeführt'' (1852–1882). The work was comprehensive in its coverage, dealing with mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, river fish, insects and botany. He replaced Martin Lichtenstein as curator of the museum in 1858, and in the same year he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In a few years, he greatly increased ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marsupial
Marsupials are a diverse group of mammals belonging to the infraclass Marsupialia. They are natively found in Australasia, Wallacea, and the Americas. One of marsupials' unique features is their reproductive strategy: the young are born in a relatively undeveloped state and then nurtured within a pouch on their mother's abdomen. Extant marsupials encompass many species, including Kangaroo, kangaroos, Koala, koalas, Opossum, opossums, Phalangeriformes, possums, Tasmanian devil, Tasmanian devils, Wombat, wombats, Wallaby, wallabies, and Bandicoot, bandicoots. Marsupials constitute a clade stemming from the last common ancestor of extant Metatheria, which encompasses all mammals more closely related to marsupials than to Placentalia, placentals. The evolutionary split between placentals and marsupials occurred 125-160 million years ago, in the Middle Jurassic-Early Cretaceous period. Presently, close to 70% of the 334 extant marsupial species are concentrated on the Australian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acrobatidae
The Acrobatidae are a small family of flying and gliding animals, gliding marsupials containing two genera, each with a single species, the feathertail glider (''Acrobates pygmaeus'') from Australia and feather-tailed possum (''Distoechurus pennatus'') from New Guinea. This family of the order Diprotodontia, which can be found in the east coast and inland of Australia and in some islands of New Guinea, is characterized by their very small size, which has side effects: because their mass-to-surface-area ratio is so small, heat escapes quicker from their bodies than it would in larger animals (the larger the mass-to-surface-area ratio, the harder it is to get rid of heat). Therefore, when temperature drops or food is scarce, they have trouble maintaining their body temperature and they enter a state known as torpor, torpidity (not to be confused with hibernation, which is not known in marsupials) which can last between one day and two weeks. In this state, the animal's breathing slo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Papua (region)
Western New Guinea, also known as Papua, Indonesian New Guinea, and Indonesian Papua, is the western half of the island of New Guinea, formerly Dutch and granted to Indonesia in 1962. Given the island is alternatively named Papua, the region is also called West Papua (). It is one of the seven geographical units of Indonesia in ISO 3166-2:ID. Lying to the west of Papua New Guinea and geographically a part of the Australian continent, the territory is almost entirely in the Southern Hemisphere and includes the Biak and Raja Ampat archipelagoes. The region is predominantly covered with rainforest where traditional peoples live, including the Dani of the Baliem Valley. A large proportion of the population live in or near coastal areas. The largest city is Jayapura. The island of New Guinea has been populated for tens of thousands of years. European traders began frequenting the region around the late 16th century due to spice trade. In the end, the Dutch Empire emerge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean north of Australia. It has Indonesia–Papua New Guinea border, a land border with Indonesia to the west and neighbours Australia to the south and the Solomon Islands to the east. Its capital, on its southern coast, is Port Moresby. The country is the world's third largest list of island countries, island country, with an area of . The nation was split in the 1880s between German New Guinea in the North and the Territory of Papua, British Territory of Papua in the South, the latter of which was ceded to Australia in 1902. All of present-day Papua New Guinea came under Australian control following World War I, with the legally distinct Territory of New Guinea being established out of the former German colony as a League of Nations mandate. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Feathertail Glider
The feathertail glider (''Acrobates pygmaeus''), also known as the pygmy gliding possum, pygmy glider, pygmy phalanger, flying phalanger and flying mouse, is a species of marsupial native to eastern Australia. It is the world's smallest gliding mammal and is named for its long feather-shaped tail. A second species, the broad-toed feathertail glider (''Acrobates (Dromicia) frontalis'', De Vis 1887) is recognised by some authors based on unpublished genetic studies and cryptic morphological differences in toe and tail characteristics. With this recognition, it is suggested that ''Acrobates pygmaeus'' takes the common name narrow-toed feathertail glider. Description At just in head-and-body length and weighing about , the feathertail glider is only around the size of a small mouse, and is the world's smallest gliding mammal. The fur is soft and silky, and is a uniform greyish brown on the upper body, and white on the underside. There are rings of dark fur around the eyes, the rhin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monotypic Taxon
In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of Genus, genera, the term "unispecific" or "monospecific" is sometimes preferred. In botanical nomenclature, a monotypic genus is a genus in the special case where a genus and a single species are simultaneously described. Theoretical implications Monotypic taxa present several important theoretical challenges in biological classification. One key issue is known as "Gregg's Paradox": if a single species is the only member of multiple hierarchical levels (for example, being the only species in its genus, which is the only genus in its family), then each level needs a distinct definition to maintain logical structure. Otherwise, the different taxonomic ranks become effectively identical, which creates problems for organizing biological diversity in a hierarchical o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mammals Of Papua New Guinea
A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three middle ear bones. These characteristics distinguish them from reptiles and birds, from which their ancestors diverged in the Carboniferous Period over 300 million years ago. Around 6,640 extant species of mammals have been described and divided into 27 orders. The study of mammals is called mammalogy. The largest orders of mammals, by number of species, are the rodents, bats, and eulipotyphlans (including hedgehogs, moles and shrews). The next three are the primates (including humans, monkeys and lemurs), the even-toed ungulates (including pigs, camels, and whales), and the Carnivora (including cats, dogs, and seals). Mammals are the only living members of Synapsida; this clade, together with Sauropsida (reptiles and birds), constitutes the lar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Possums
Possum may refer to: Animals * Didelphimorphia, or (o)possums, an order of marsupials native to the Americas ** Didelphis, a genus of marsupials within Didelphimorphia *** Common opossum, native to Central and South America *** Virginia opossum, native to North America *** White-eared opossum, native to South America * Phalangeriformes, also called (o)possums, any of a number of arboreal marsupial species native to Australia, New Guinea, and Sulawesi ** Common brushtail possum (''Trichosurus vulpecula''), a common possum in Australian urban areas, invasive in New Zealand ** Common ringtail possum (''Pseudocheirus peregrinus''), also common in Australian urban areas, absent from New Zealand ** Phalangeridae (possums and cuscuses), a family of marsupials native to Australia and New Guinea containing most of the species referred to as "possums" in Australia People with the name * Possum Bourne (1956–2003), New Zealand rally car driver * George Jones (1931–2013), known as "The Pos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mammals Described In 1874
A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the Class (biology), class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three Evolution of mammalian auditory ossicles, middle ear bones. These characteristics distinguish them from reptiles and birds, from which their ancestors Genetic divergence, diverged in the Carboniferous Period over 300 million years ago. Around 6,640 Neontology#Extant taxon, extant species of mammals have been described and divided into 27 Order (biology), orders. The study of mammals is called mammalogy. The largest orders of mammals, by number of species, are the rodents, bats, and eulipotyphlans (including hedgehogs, Mole (animal), moles and shrews). The next three are the primates (including humans, monkeys and lemurs), the Artiodactyl, even-toed ungulates (including pigs, camels, and whales), and the Carnivora (including Felidae, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taxa Named By Wilhelm Peters
In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and given a particular ranking, especially if and when it is accepted or becomes established. It is very common, however, for taxonomists to remain at odds over what belongs to a taxon and the criteria used for inclusion, especially in the context of rank-based (" Linnaean") nomenclature (much less so under phylogenetic nomenclature). If a taxon is given a formal scientific name, its use is then governed by one of the nomenclature codes specifying which scientific name is correct for a particular grouping. Initial attempts at classifying and ordering organisms (plants and animals) were presumably set forth in prehistoric times by hunter-gatherers, as suggested by the fairly sophisticated folk taxonomies. Much later, Aristotle, and later still ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
