Pseudocheirus
| Pseudocheirus | |
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| Common ringtail possum (Pseudocheirus peregrinus) | |
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Pseudocheirus
Ogilby, 1837
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Pseudocheirus is a genus of ringtail possums (family Pseudocheiridae). It includes a single living species, the common ringtail possum (Pseudocheirus peregrinus) of Australia, as well as the fossil Pseudocheirus marshalli from the Pliocene of Victoria.[1]
Other species have previously been included in this genus. Most other ringtails—the lemur-like ringtail (Hemibelideus lemuroides), the rock-haunting ringtail (Petropseudes dahli), and the various species of Pseudochirulus and Pseudochirops—were classified in Pseudocheirus until the 1980s or 1990s.[2] A second ringtail from the Victorian Pliocene, Petauroides stirtoni, was originally named as a Pseudocheirus, but is now considered to be more closely related to the greater glider (Petauroides volans).[3]
Taxonomic opinion favours treatment of the western population, Pseudocheirus peregrinus occidentalis, as a separate species (Pseudocheirus occidentalis), though the contradictory evidence from current studies have prevented this recommendation being published.[4]
References
Literature cited
- Groves, C.P. 2005. Order Diprotodontia. Pp. 43–70 in Wilson, D.E. and Reeder, D.M. (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: a taxonomic and geographic reference. 3rd ed. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2 vols., 2142 pp. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0
- Turnbull, W.D., Lundelius, E.R., Jr. and Archer, M. 2003. Dasyurids, perameloids, phalangeroids, and vombatoids from the Early Pliocene Hamilton Fauna, Victoria, Australia. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 279:513–540.
