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Following the arrival of Europeans in Australia, the term possum was borrowed to describe distantly related Australian marsupials of the suborder Phalangeriformes, [7] which are more closely related to other Australian marsupials such as kangaroos. Didelphimorphia comes from the Ancient Greek words for "two" (di) and "wombs" (delphus). [8]
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 generic name (Didelphis) is derived from Ancient Greek: di, "two", and delphus, "womb". [9] The possums of Australia, whose name derives from their similarity to the American species, are also marsupials, but of the order Diprotodontia. The Virginia opossum is known in Mexico as tlacuache, tacuachi, and tlacuachi, from the Nahuatl word ...
Common name Scientific name and subspecies Range Size and ecology IUCN status and estimated population Black-shouldered opossum. C. irrupta Sanborn, 1951: West-central South America: Size: 25–33 cm (10–13 in) long, plus 31–34 cm (12–13 in) tail [12] Habitat: Forest [13] Diet: Flowers and fruit, as well as small rodents [13] LC Unknown [13]
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.
Possum Bourne (1956–2003), New Zealand rally car driver; George Jones (1931–2013), known as "The Possum", American country music singer; Possum Jones (1934–1997), American NASCAR driver; Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (1932–2002), Indigenous Australian painter; Possum Whitted (1890–1962), American baseball player
The name came from T. S. Eliot’s 1939 collection “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats,” which contained nothing but poems about kitties. "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer" was one of them ...
The scientific name Monodelphis is derived from Greek and means "single womb" (referring to the lack of a pouch) and the Latin word domestica which means "domestic" (chosen because of the species' habit of entering human dwellings). [3] It was the first marsupial to have its genome sequenced.