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It is often simply referred to as an opossum, and in North America it is commonly referred to as a possum [3] (/ ˈ p ɒ s əm /; sometimes rendered as ' possum in written form to indicate the dropped "o").
Some sources call this subfamily the "American opossums", [2] [6] while others use that term for the whole family of opossums, Didelphidae. [1] The term may be redundant, though, since all opossums are native to the Americas, while their distant Australian taxonomic relatives, in the suborder Phalangeriformes are referred to as possums in ...
Family Phalangeridae: brushtail possums and cuscuses Subfamily Trichosurinae. Genus Trichosurus. Northern brushtail possum (Trichosurus arnhemensis) Short-eared possum (Trichosurus caninus) Mountain brushtail possum (Trichosurus cunninghami) Coppery brushtail possum (Trichosurus johnstonii) Common brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) Genus ...
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 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 ...
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 most well known examples are antibiotic resistance in the medical field along with better-known laboratory experiments documenting evolution's occurrence. Natural selection is tantamount to common descent in that long-term occurrence and selection pressures can lead to the diversity of life on earth as found today.
A Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana) playing dead A barred grass snake (Natrix helvetica) playing dead. Apparent death [a] is a behavior in which animals take on the appearance of being dead. It is an immobile state most often triggered by a predatory attack and can be found in a wide range of animals from insects and crustaceans to ...