It seems to me there is a wealth of wonderful marsupials that I’m not terribly familiar with. To me, tree-kangaroo seems like a world-class animal. The bodies of tree-kangaroos differ a bit from their cousins who live on land, to the extant that tree-kangaroos are actually clumsy on land, but it isn’t too difficult to see the relation.

Most species of tree-kangaroos only live in New Guinea, and at what may seem like an unimpressive 45 pounds, the largest species of tree-kangaroos represent the largest native mammals on the island.

The species pictured, the Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo, is endangered, like several other species in the family. This, combined with their remote habitats, and arboreal nature (animals who live in trees often seem to be not as well understood, largely because they’re more difficult for us ground-loving humans to study) are probably why we don’t see them more often. But I like them.

Wikipedia page on tree-kangaroos.
Via Tim Williams’ Flickr photostream.

(I was going to do something relating to the Spore Creature Creator, as it was released as I was writing this, but when I downloaded it, I learned that my graphics card in combination with my operating system did not work. But if you create something uglorable, send it to me at kento [at] uglorable [dot] com . I want to keep this site about animals, and don’t want to clutter it too much with computer stuff because that’s not why most people come here, but I might add them to the collection of creatures I’ve got started at my new sideproject sporepng.com. Hopefully a solution for my tragically outdated (10 months old!) hardware will be available soon, and I will be able to make some too!)

From the Flickr description:

I learned tonight that Petauroides volans is actually a gliding possum and is more closely related to the Lemur-like Ringtail Possum than other gliders. They are nocturnal marsupials, eating mostly eucalyptus leaves. About the size of a cat but considerably longer (about a metre long including the tail), they have a membrane stretching from each elbow to the knee. When extended this membrane forms a kind of wing that allows them to glide up to a reported 100m. We didn’t see any gliding this night.

I would have been a bit surprised to see it glide, it looks kind of chubby!

Via Julian Robinson’s Flickr photostream.

The numbat is a marsupial in the order Dasyuromorphia, the order of the tasmanian devils, quolls, and thylacine (also known as the tasmanian tiger). It’s notable for being one of the only marsupials to be active during the daytime, its active hours matching the hours termites, its prey, are most active.

The numbat was found over most of Australia until European colonization. Being active during the day makes one more vulnerable to predators, and introduced species took advantage of the numbats vulnerabilities, eventually leading to their extinction everywhere but in a small area of Western Australia. Efforts to protect the numbat have proven successful however, and while the species is still considered vulnerable of becoming endangered, it is no longer considered endangered.

I kind of think the numbats markings resemble those of the thylacine, and I wonder if they have the same patterns because of their relation, or if it’s because of convergence evolution.

Via Nick Lawes’ Flickr Photostream!

I think I’ll post another marsupial tomorrow.

Via Ben Harris-Roxas’s Flickr Photostream!

Posting this, I realized that I didn’t know what the difference was between a possum and an opossum. I had always assumed they were different names for the same thing. While related, it seems the word “opossum” is used for species found in the Americas, while “possums” is the name of their cousins in Australia and the Malay Archipelago.

Via Valerie’s Flickr Photostream!

Yeah, it’s adorable, in a cross-eyed, semi-deminted, rat-like way…. I love it!

Via Jennifrog’s photostream.