The bear cuscuses are the members of the genus ''Ailurops''. They are

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 r ...

s of the family

Phalangeridae 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, a ...

. The bear cuscuses are

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 ...

marsupials. Almost nothing is known of their status and ecology. Although some scientists assign all populations to one species, ''A. ursinus'', others place ''melanotis'' as its own species. The genus is distinct, though, and some authorities place it within its own subfamily, Ailuropinae. They are found only in

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

Sulawesi Sulawesi ( ), also known as Celebes ( ), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the List of islands by area, world's 11th-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Min ...

and some smaller nearby islands that are biogeographically part of

Wallacea Wallacea is a biogeography, biogeographical designation for a group of mainly list of islands of Indonesia, Indonesian islands separated by deep-water straits from the Asian and Australia (continent), Australian continental shelf, continental ...

, which from a faunal standpoint is intermediate between the

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

and

Indomalayan The Indomalayan realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms. It extends across most of South and Southeast Asia and into the southern parts of East Asia. Also called the Oriental realm by biogeographers, Indomalaya spreads all over the Ind ...

realms. It is hypothesized that the isolation of the bear cuscuses on the island of Sulawesi in the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

accounts for the animal's morphological divergence from the rest of the family Phalangeridae. The genus contains the following species: * Talaud bear cuscus, ''Ailurops melanotis'' - Salebabu Island in the

Talaud Islands The Talaud Islands Regency () is a Regency (Indonesia), regency of North Sulawesi province, Indonesia. The Talaud Islands form an archipelago situated to the northeast of the Minahasa Peninsula, with a land area of 1,251.02 km2. It had a populati ...

* Sulawesi bear cuscus, ''Ailurops ursinus'' -

, Peleng Island,

Muna Island Muna (Pulau Muna) is an island in the Southeast Sulawesi province of Indonesia with an area of and had a population of 316,293 at the 2010 Census and 368,654 at the 2020 Census.Badan Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 2021. It is just southeast of the i ...

, Butung Island,

Togian Islands The Togian (or Togean) Islands are an archipelago of 56 islands and many offshore islets, situated in the Gulf of Tomini, off the coast of Central Sulawesi, in Indonesia. The largest islands are Batudaka Island, Batudaka, Togean Island, Togea ...

References

Possums Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxa named by Johann Georg Wagler {{Diprotodont-stub