Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
3 Characteristics. Toggle Characteristics subsection. 3.1 Reproduction and life cycle. ... and in North America it is commonly referred to as a possum [3] (/ ...
The common ringtail possum (Pseudocheirus peregrinus, Greek for "false hand" and Latin for "pilgrim" or "alien") is an Australian marsupial. It lives in a variety of habitats and eats a variety of leaves of both native and introduced plants, as well as flowers, fruits and sap.
The common opossum (Didelphis marsupialis), also called the southern or black-eared opossum [2] or gambá, and sometimes called a possum, is a marsupial species living from the northeast of Mexico to Bolivia (reaching the coast of the South Pacific Ocean to the central coast of Peru), including Trinidad and Tobago and the Windwards in the Caribbean, [2] where it is called manicou. [3]
The sugar glider (Petaurus breviceps) is a small, omnivorous, arboreal, and nocturnal gliding possum.The common name refers to its predilection for sugary foods such as sap and nectar and its ability to glide through the air, much like a flying squirrel. [8]
Around the turn of the 20th century, the opossum was the subject of numerous songs, including "Carve dat Possum", a minstrel song written in 1875 by Sam Lucas. [ 66 ] Although it is widely distributed in the United States, the Virginia opossum's appearance in folklore and popularity as a food item has tied it closely to the American Southeast .
The common brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula, from the Greek for "furry tailed" and the Latin for "little fox", previously in the genus Phalangista [4]) is a nocturnal, semiarboreal marsupial of the family Phalangeridae, native to Australia and invasive in New Zealand, and the second-largest of the possums.
The species are commonly known as possums, opossums, [3] gliders, and cuscus. The common name "(o)possum" for various Phalangeriformes species derives from the creatures' resemblance to the opossums of the Americas (the term comes from Powhatan language aposoum "white animal", from Proto-Algonquian * wa·p-aʔɬemwa "white dog"). [ 4 ]
Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana). Didelphimorphia is an order of marsupial mammals.Members of this order are called didelphimorphs, or opossums.They are primarily found in South America, though some are found in Central America and Mexico and one, the Virginia opossum, ranges into the United States and Canada.