Seri's tree-kangaroo (''Dendrolagus stellarum'') is a species of

tree-kangaroo Tree-kangaroos are marsupials of the genus ''Dendrolagus'', adapted for arboreal locomotion. They inhabit the tropical rainforests of New Guinea and far northeastern Queensland, Australia along with some of the islands in the region. All tree- ...

native and

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures lapse rate, fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is ...

s of west-central

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

. Seri's tree-kangaroo was originally considered to be a

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

of '' Dendrolagus dorianus'', but was elevated to

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

in 2005 by Groves.Lamoreux, J. & Hilton-Taylor, C. (Global Mammal Assessment Team) 2008. Dendrolagus stellarum. In: IUCN 2010. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Versione 2010.1

Distribution

Its elevational distribution is rather different from that of the other related species, in that it descends no lower than about 2600 metres. The forest becomes less

moss Mosses are small, non-vascular plant, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic phylum, division Bryophyta (, ) ''sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Wilhelm Philippe Schimper, Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryo ...

y and more diverse, below this elevation. It is not clear why it is restricted to such high elevations, unlike the closely related

Ifola ''Dendrolagus notatus'', the ifola or ifola tree kangaroo, is a species of marsupial in the family Macropodidae. It is endemic to Papua New Guinea where it is found in high elevations of the central mountains. It is threatened by habitat loss ...

(''Dendrolagus notatus'') which descends to much lower elevations.

Description

"Seri's tree-kangaroo is one of the most attractive members of the Doria's complex. Very young animals have a bright yellow tail and a very dark body, but as they age the tail darkens and the distinctive silvery tipping develops on the limbs. The heavily silver-frosted coat colour of adults blends extraordinarily well with the

epiphytic An epiphyte is a plant or plant-like organism that grows on the surface of another plant and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, water (in marine environments) or from debris accumulating around it. The plants on which epiphyt ...

mosses and

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

s of the upper montane forest."

References

* http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/classification/Dendrolagus_stellarum.html * D.E. Wilson; D.M. Reeder, Dendrolagus stellarum. In Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. 3a edizione, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. {{Taxonbar, from=Q209150 Mammals of Papua New Guinea Mammals of Western New Guinea Mammals described in 1990 Marsupials of New Guinea Taxa named by Tim Flannery