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Brush-tailed Possums
Trichosurus
The brushtail possums are the members of the genus Trichosurus in the Phalangeridae, a family of marsupials. They are native to Australia (including Tasmania) and some small nearby islands. Unique among marsupials, they have shifted the hypaxial muscles from the epipubic to the pelvis, much like in placental mammals, meaning that their breathing cycle is more similar to the latter than to that of other non-eutherian mammals. In general, they are more terrestrially oriented than other possums, and in some ways might parallel primates.
The genus contains these species:
4 branches of this genus, most-observed first · about 4 known species
Common Brushtail Possum
speciesTrichosurus vulpecula
Short-eared Brush-tailed Possum
speciesTrichosurus caninus
Mountain Brush-tailed Possum
speciesTrichosurus cunninghami
Coppery Brush-tailed Possum
speciesTrichosurus johnstonii
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Trichosurus in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 42805.