Didelphis marsupialis

The common opossum, also called the northern black-eared opossum, is a species of marsupial living from the northeast of Mexico to Bolivia, including Trinidad and Tobago as well as the Windward Islands in the Caribbean, where it is referred to as the manicou. The common opossum prefers forests, but can also be found in fields and cities.

Didelphis marsupialis

Rabipelao.jpg : Juan Tello derivative work: WolfmanSF ( talk ) · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
common opossumPBDB
Sits inside
DidelphisPBDB
Diet
omnivore, carnivorePBDB, for Didelphidae
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Didelphidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Didelphidae

Time the record covers

At least 198 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 210 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 0 of 11 occurrencesPleistocene — about 7 of 11 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 4 of 11 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.2–2.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.1–2.0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.0–1.8 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.0–924 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences924 ka–821 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences821 ka–719 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences719 ka–616 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences616 ka–513 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences513 ka–411 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences411 ka–308 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences308 ka–205 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences205 ka–103 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence103 ka–0 Mya — about 8 occurrences210 ka – 11.7 ka3.08 Mya0 Mya

11 occurrences of Didelphis marsupialis on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

11 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

4 formations

Tacubaya — 21.80°N, 102.30°WChapala — 20.30°N, 103.20°WShuler — 32.71°N, 96.71°WBeaumont — 29.66°N, 94.09°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Didelphis marsupialis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Didelphis marsupialis and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Didelphis marsupialis and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

383 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Didelphis marsupialis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

11 references

Each of the 11 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Didelphis marsupialis

Credit
Rabipelao.jpg : Juan Tello derivative work: WolfmanSF ( talk )
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Didelphis marsupialis was found in Smithsonian Open Access and Sketchfab.

MorphoSource was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itDidelphis through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758