Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Com­mon ring­tail pos­sums are found along the east­ern coast­line of Aus­tralia, Tas­ma­nia, and the south­west­ern cor­ner of west­ern Aus­tralia (Mar­su­pial So­ci­ety of Vic­to­ria Inc. 2000).

• Biogeographic Regions
• australian
  • native

Habi­tat

Com­mon ring­tail pos­sums have an ex­ten­sive dis­tri­b­u­tion. They occur in tem­per­ate or trop­i­cal areas but are rarely found in drier areas. It is thought that this wide habi­tat range is due to their abil­ity to feed on a num­ber of dif­fer­ent plant species. They can usu­ally be found in dense brush forests, as they favor en­vi­ron­ments that are plen­ti­ful with eu­ca­lyp­tus. The dense brush is also op­ti­mal for the con­struc­tion of dreys. Along with sev­eral other species, the com­mon ring­tail pos­sum oc­cu­pies a range of niches com­pa­ra­ble to the niche's of lemurs, mon­keys, squir­rels, and bush­ba­bies in sim­i­lar forests on other con­ti­nents (Bar­nett et al. 1984; Lee and Smith 1984).

• Terrestrial Biomes
• forest

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Com­mon ring­tail pos­sums are the small­est of eight species of ring­tail pos­sums that live in Aus­tralia. The adults of this species typ­i­cally are be­tween 30 and 35 cm in body length, with a tail length that is roughly equal to the body length. Com­mon ring­tail pos­sums have brown or red­dish fur on the upper sur­faces of the body and light col­ored or gray fur on the ven­tral sur­faces. Com­mon ring­tail pos­sums have large eyes which are well adapted to see­ing at night. Two of the claws found on the front feet are op­pos­able and the pads, as well as the tips, of the toes are grooved. They pos­sess a strong, but rel­a­tively hair­less, pre­hen­sile tail. This tail is car­ried tightly curled when not in use. These an­i­mals can be dis­tin­guished from other pos­sum species in sev­eral ways. Their ears are smaller and more rounded and they typ­i­cally have patches of white fur both on and above the ears. The tail of com­mon ring­tail pos­sums has a white tip and is ta­pered (Mar­su­pial So­ci­ety of Vic­to­ria Inc. 2000; Wildlife Wel­fare Org. of S.A. 2000).

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Range mass

  500 to 1000 g

  17.62 to 35.24 oz

• Average mass

  700 g

  24.67 oz

• Average basal metabolic rate

  2.27 W

  AnAge

Re­pro­duc­tion

Com­mon ring­tail pos­sums are mar­su­pi­als, thus they carry their young in a pouch while they de­velop. Mat­ing takes place be­tween April and De­cem­ber, de­pend­ing on the lo­ca­tion in Aus­tralia. Most young are born some­time be­tween May and July. Both males and fe­males are sex­u­ally ma­ture in the mat­ing sea­son after their birth. Com­mon ring­tail pos­sums are polye­strous as well as poly­ovu­lar. The es­trous cycle of this species lasts for 28 days (Bar­nett et al. 1984).

Most com­mon ring­tail pos­sums have lit­ters of two off­spring, how­ever they can have up to four. It has been sug­gested that six em­bryos are born at the same time, how­ever, only two of those six are able to find a use­able nip­ple, thus the other four usu­ally die. The fe­male's pouch has a for­ward fac­ing open­ing; two of the four nip­ples are func­tional at one time. Older fe­males can pro­duce up to two lit­ters of young per year (Wildlife Wel­fare Org of S.A. 2000).

Ini­tial growth of the com­mon ring­tail pos­sum young is gen­er­ally slow. This slow growth oc­curs dur­ing the pe­riod when fe­male weight is low­est. Be­tween 90 and 106 days after birth, the young both open their eyes and are able to make clear vo­cal­iza­tions. Be­tween 120 and 130 days after birth the young emerge from their mother's pouch. How­ever, lac­ta­tion gen­er­ally does not stop until be­tween 180 and 220 days after birth, some­times end­ing as early as 145 days (Bar­nett et al. 1984; Gilmore and Stone­house 1997).

• Key Reproductive Features
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual

• Average number of offspring

  2

  AnAge

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)
  Sex: female

  365 days

  AnAge

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)
  Sex: male

  365 days

  AnAge

Lifes­pan/Longevity

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  5.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  8.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  6.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

Be­hav­ior

There are sev­eral unique be­hav­ioral pat­terns ex­hib­ited by com­mon ring­tail pos­sums. In­di­vid­u­als are ter­ri­to­r­ial and use scented se­cre­tions to mark their ter­ri­tory. Un­like many species of ring­tail pos­sum, com­mon ring­tail pos­sums are not soli­tary. They are typ­i­cally found in small groups. A typ­i­cal group con­sists of one adult male and one or two adult fe­males in ad­di­tion to their off­spring from the pre­vi­ous breed­ing sea­son. These fam­ily group­ings can be found in nests which they con­struct, called dreys. Dreys can be con­structed of shred­ded bark, twigs, and ferns, and are usu­ally built in the fork of a tree or in dense shrub­bery. They are 25 to 30 cm across and have an en­trance hole on one side which is 8 to 10 cm in di­am­e­ter (Gilmore and Stone­house 1997; Mar­su­pial So­ci­ety of Vic­to­ria 2000).

Com­mon ring­tail pos­sums are most ac­tive at night and are well adapted to ar­bo­real life. They are rarely found on the ground and use their pre­hen­sile tail ex­ten­sively. Com­mon ring­tail pos­sums use vo­cal­iza­tions as a means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. The calls of this species are gen­er­ally de­scribed as soft, high-pitched, and twit­ter­ing (Lee and Smith 1984).

Com­mon ring­tail pos­sums can live for up to 6 years in the wild, but typ­i­cally do not sur­vive past 3 years of age. Half of the off­spring will not sur­vive even one year after birth. One rea­son for such a short life ex­pectancy is be­cause of pre­da­tion (The Mar­su­pial So­ci­ety of Vic­to­ria Inc 2000). In some Aus­tralian areas where the ring­tail is found near sub­ur­ban pop­u­la­tions, hunt­ing by cats is a prob­lem for the com­mon ring­tail. Once a pos­sum suf­fers a bite from a cat it is highly un­likely that it will sur­vive, re­gard­less of the sever­ity of the bite.

• Key Behaviors
• motile

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

• Perception Channels
• tactile
• chemical

Food Habits

Com­mon ring­tail pos­sums are noc­tur­nal and pri­mar­ily fo­liv­o­rous. They feed mainly on eu­ca­lyp­tus leaves, but may also eat flow­ers, buds, nec­tar, and fruit. Part of the com­mon ring­tail pos­sum's cae­cum is able to detox­ify the tan­nins and phe­nols that are pre­sent in eu­ca­lyp­tus leaves, mak­ing them ca­pa­ble of tak­ing ad­van­tage of this food source. A low meta­bolic rate helps to com­pen­sate for the low en­ergy in­take of com­mon ring­tail pos­sums due to their spe­cial­ized diet. Feed­ing oc­curs both dur­ing the first half of the night and, again, be­fore dawn. Com­mon ring­tail pos­sums pre­fer eat­ing the youngest fo­liage of the plants they con­sume. This ef­fects re­pro­duc­tive pat­terns, as the young leave the pouch and are weaned dur­ing times when flower and fruit growth peaks (Bar­nett et al. 1984).

When they are found in urban Aus­tralian areas, com­mon ring­tail pos­sums eat rose buds (Syd­ney Met­ro­pol­i­tan Wildlife Ser­vice Inc. 2000).

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

None known.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Com­mon ring­tail pos­sums do not ad­versely af­fect hu­mans. Un­like brush­tail pos­sums, they are not con­sid­ered pests in sub­ur­ban areas and do not nest within homes or human struc­tures (Syd­ney Met­ro­pol­i­tan Wildlife Ser­vices Inc. 2000).

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Dur­ing the 1950's com­mon ring­tail pos­sum pop­u­la­tions se­verely de­clined in num­bers. Cur­rently pop­u­la­tions seem to have re­cov­ered.

De­for­esta­tion in Aus­tralia has re­sulted in a loss of habi­tat for com­mon ring­tail pos­sums, be­cause they are al­most ex­clu­sively ar­bo­real. In sub­ur­ban areas they are vul­ner­a­ble to being struck by cars, or hunted by cats and dogs (Syd­ney Met­ro­pol­i­tan Wildlife Ser­vices Inc. 2000).

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

Other Com­ments

'Pere­gri­nus', means "for­eign false hand" in Latin (Syd­ney Met­ro­pol­i­tan Wildlife Ser­vices Inc. 2000).

Con­trib­u­tors

Paul Welsh (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Phil Myers (ed­i­tor), Mu­seum of Zo­ol­ogy, Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

Bar­nett, J.L, A., R. R.A. How. 1984. The Pop­u­la­tion Bi­ol­ogy of Pseudocheirus pere­gri­nus. Pp. 261-268 in A Ian Hume, ed. Pos­sums and Glid­ers. New South Wales: Sur­rey Beatty & Sons Pty Lim­ited.

Bar­nett, J.L, A., R. W.F. Humphreys. 1984. In­dices of Con­di­tion of Pha­langer Pop­u­la­tions: A Re­view. Pp. 59-77 in A Ian Hume, ed. Pos­sums and Glid­ers. New South Wales: Sur­rey Beatty & Sons Pty Lim­ited.

Gilmore, Desmond, B. 1997. The Bi­ol­ogy of Mar­su­pi­als. Lon­don: Uni­ver­sity Park Press.

Lee, An­thony, A. 1984. The Evo­lu­tion of Strate­gies for Sur­vival and Re­pro­duc­tion in Pos­sums and Glid­ers. Pp. 17-19 in A Ian Hume, ed. Pos­sums and Glid­ers. New South Wales: Sur­rey Beatty & Sons Pty Lim­ited.

Syd­ney Met­ro­pol­i­tan Wildlife Ser­vices Inc., 2000. "The Com­mon Ring­tail Pos­sum" (On-line). Ac­cessed March 18, 2001 at http://​www.​sydneywildlife.​com/​Animals/​Mammals/​AnimalM_​RingTailPossum01.​htm.

Tas­ma­nia Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice, 1998. "Com­mon Ring­tail Pos­sum: Pseudocheirus pere­gri­nus" (On-line). Ac­cessed March 18, 2001 at http://​www.​parks.​tas.​gov.​au/​wildlife/​mammals/​rtposs.​html.

The Mar­su­pial So­ci­ety of Vic­to­ria Inc, 2000. "The Com­mon Ring­tail Pos­sum" (On-line). Ac­cessed March 18, 2001 at http://​home.​vicnet.​net.​au/​~mar­sup/fac­t_sheets/ring­tail_­pos­sum.htm.

Wildlife Wel­fare Or­ga­ni­za­tion of South Aus­tralia Inc, 2000. "Ring­tail Pos­sums: The Com­mon Ring­tail Pos­sum" (On-line). Ac­cessed March 18, 2001 at http://​wildlfe.​mtx.​net/​page20.​html.