Petauridae

Petauridae is a family of possums containing 14 species: four species of trioks and striped possum, eight species of wrist-winged glider, and Leadbeater's possum, which has only vestigial gliding membranes. Most of the wrist-winged gliders are native to Australia, whereas most of the striped possums to New Guinea, but some members of each group are found on both sides of the Torres Strait. Leadbeater's possum is endemic to Victoria, Australia.

Petauridae

Joseph Wolf · Public Domain · 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
Sits inside
PhalangeriformesPBDB
Diet
frugivore, insectivorePBDB
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Marsupialia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia

Time the record covers

At least 23 million years on record.

The record covers at least 23.04 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 27.3 Mya to 0 Mya.

Oligocene — about 2 of 27 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 0 of 27 occurrencesPliocene — about 3 of 27 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 19 of 27 occurrencesPleistocene28–27 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences26–25 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences25–24 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.6–4.6 Mya — about 1 occurrence4.6–3.7 Mya — about 2 occurrences3.7–2.8 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.8–1.9 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.9–928 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences928 ka–0 Mya — about 17 occurrences23.04 Mya11.7 ka27.8 Mya0 Mya

27 occurrences of Petauridae 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

27 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

3 formations

Grange Burn — 37.70°S, 141.95°EGrange Burn — 37.73°S, 141.95°ENamba — 31.23°S, 140.23°ENelson Bay — 38.60°S, 141.58°E

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The named rock units Petauridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 20 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Petauridae and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Petauridae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

297 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 19 sites for Petauridae, 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

13 references

Each of the 27 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. 1 further reference is not listed. 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 Petauridae

Credit
Joseph Wolf
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Petauridae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access 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 itPhalangeriformes through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bonaparte 1838