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The word opossum is derived from the Powhatan language and was first recorded between 1607 and 1611 by John Smith (as opassom) and William Strachey (as aposoum). [5] Possum was first recorded in 1613.
Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana). Didelphimorphia is an order of marsupial mammals.Members of this order are called didelphimorphs, or opossums.They are primarily found in South America, though some are found in Central America and Mexico and one, the Virginia opossum, ranges into the United States and Canada.
Virginia opossums can vary considerably in size, with larger specimens found to the north of the opossum's range and smaller specimens in the tropics. They measure 33–55 cm (13–22 in) long from their snout to the base of the tail, with the tail adding another 25–54 cm (9.8–21.3 in).
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 waterhouse's mouse opossum was first described in 1860 from a group of syntypes, but no single type specimen was designated.A type specimen from Gualaquiza, Ecuador was chosen in 1921; all that remains of the specimen is a skull as the rest of the liquid-preserved body was lost.
The largest species, the Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana), is the only marsupial to be found in North America, north of Mexico. The Virginia opossum has opposable toes on their two back feet. One of the synapomorphies of this genus is the hypertrophied spinous processes of the cervical vertebrae, which also interlock. As a result, this ...
A northern four-eyed opossum from Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico. These species are relatively light-furred for a Philander, with gray colors throughout the back, neck, base of the tail, and outer side of the limbs. The head can have some gray colors but tends to be darker, closer to black.
Colocolo opossum, also known as monito del monte, an only living marsupial species of order Australidelphia that is native to South America. Opossum rat, a species of rodent in the family Muridae; Monommatinae, also known as the opossum beetle; Mysida, also known as opossum shrimp, group of small, shrimp-like crustaceans