Trichosurus vulpecula

The common brushtail possum is a nocturnal, semiarboreal marsupial of the family Phalangeridae, native to Australia and invasive in New Zealand, and the second-largest of the Australasian possums.

Trichosurus vulpecula

JJ Harrison ( https://www.jjharrison.com.au/ ) · CC BY-SA 2.5 · 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 brushtail possumPBDB
Sits inside
TrichosurusPBDB
Diet
herbivore, insectivorePBDB, for Phalangeridae
Life habit
arborealPBDB, for Trichosurus
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia

Time the record covers

At most 3.6 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 3.6 Mya and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pliocene — about 0 of 18 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 16 of 18 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 2 of 18 occurrences3.7–3.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.6–3.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.4–3.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.3–3.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.1–3.0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.0–2.9 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.9–2.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences2.5–2.3 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences2.2–2.0 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences2.0–1.9 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.9–1.8 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.8–1.6 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.4–1.2 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.1–957 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences957 ka–820 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences820 ka–683 ka Mya — about 0.8 occurrences683 ka–547 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences547 ka–410 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences410 ka–273 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences273 ka–137 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences137 ka–0 Mya — about 8 occurrences4.1 Mya0 Mya

18 occurrences of Trichosurus vulpecula 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

18 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.

Trichosurus vulpecula and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Trichosurus vulpecula and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

304 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Trichosurus vulpecula, 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 18 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 Trichosurus vulpecula

Credit
JJ Harrison ( https://www.jjharrison.com.au/ )
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Trichosurus vulpecula 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 itTrichosurus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Kerr 1792)