Distoechurus pennatusfeathertail possum

Ge­o­graphic Range

Feath­er­tail pos­sums can be found in suit­able forested habi­tats, in­clud­ing dis­turbed forests, through­out New Guinea. (Flan­nery, 1995)

Habi­tat

Feath­er­tail pos­sums are found in areas of dis­turbed sec­ondary for­est, rain­for­est, scrub for­est, and gar­dens. They also are found in high­land rain­for­est and lower moss forests at al­ti­tudes of up to 1,900 me­ters. (Nowak, 1991)

  • Range elevation
    1,900 (high) m
    ft

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

The head and body length is 100 to 120mm and the tail length is 123 to 55mm. Adult males weigh about 53 grams, and adult fe­males weigh about 50 grams. Body col­oration is dull buff, light brown, to slightly gray in color. The head is streaked with black and white bands that ex­tend from the muz­zle to the top of the head. There is a con­spic­u­ous black patch just below each ear. The basal part of the tail is well furred, and the re­main­der is nearly naked. A fringe of stiff hairs out­lines the tail in a feather-like pat­tern hence the name feather-tailed pos­sum. The coat is a soft, thick tex­ture. The claws are sharp and curved and the ter­mi­nal pads of the dig­its are not ex­panded. The eyes are large and the ears are small and naked. The tip of the tail is pre­hen­sile. Fe­males have one me­di­ally placed teat, and a pouch that opens an­te­ri­orly. (Flan­nery, 1995; Nowak, 1991; Wool­ley and Al­li­son, 1982)

Ac­ro­batids dif­fer from other pos­sums in hav­ing six pads on their feet in­stead of five (an adap­ta­tion to en­hance grip when climb­ing) and a tail with rows of long stiff hairs along each side, form­ing a feather-like struc­ture. This is thought of being an adap­ta­tion to glid­ing. Dis­toechu­rus pen­na­tus does not have a mem­brane and can­not glide. (Flan­nery, 1995; Nowak, 1991; Wool­ley and Al­li­son, 1982)

The tongue is 21 mm long. The dor­sal sur­face is cov­ered with a mat of back­wardly point­ing papil­lae that is thought to be used as to tool to re­trieve nec­tar and pollen from flow­ers. (Nowak, 1991)

  • Sexual Dimorphism
  • female larger
  • Range mass
    50 to 53 g
    1.76 to 1.87 oz
  • Range length
    100 to 120 mm
    3.94 to 4.72 in

Re­pro­duc­tion

Mat­ing sys­tems in feath­er­tail pos­sums are not well un­der­stood. Their close rel­a­tive, Ac­ro­bates pyg­maeus, is polyg­y­nous. (Springer and et al, 1989; Ward, 1998)

Re­pro­duc­tive re­search is lack­ing for feath­er­tail pos­sums but the re­lated species, Ac­ro­bates pyg­maeus, reaches sex­ual ma­tu­rity at 8 months to one year of age and has two lit­ters per year. Lit­ter size is one or two young and is de­ter­mined by a num­ber of fac­tors, lat­i­tude, al­ti­tude, ovu­la­tion rate, and the num­ber of teats. They nest in tree holes and fe­males are prob­a­bly polyg­y­nous. Breed­ing can hap­pen at any time of year in the trop­ics but births have a sea­sonal peak in spring. (Springer and et al, 1989; Ward, 1998; Wool­ley and Al­li­son, 1982)

  • Breeding interval
    Feathertail possums can have up to 2 litters per year.
  • Breeding season
    There is a seasonal peak of births in spring.
  • Range number of offspring
    1 to 2
  • Average number of offspring
    1
    AnAge

Like other mar­su­pi­als, feath­er­tail pos­sums ges­tate and nurse their young until they are weaned. There is lit­tle in­for­ma­tion on other forms of parental in­vest­ment in feath­er­tail pos­sums. (Low, 1978; Rus­sell, 1982)

  • Parental Investment
  • altricial
  • pre-fertilization
    • provisioning
    • protecting
      • female
  • pre-hatching/birth
    • provisioning
      • female
    • protecting
      • female
  • pre-weaning/fledging
    • provisioning
      • female
    • protecting
      • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Lit­tle is known about the lifes­pan of feath­er­tail pos­sums. In cap­tiv­ity one lived to 1.5 years. Be­cause they are small pos­sums, it is sug­gested that they have rel­a­tively short gen­er­a­tion times. (Collins, 1973; Wool­ley and Al­li­son, 1982)

Be­hav­ior

Feath­er­tail pos­sums are noc­tur­nal and highly ar­bo­real. These pos­sums are soli­tary most of the year out­side of the breed­ing sea­son, when they as­so­ci­ate briefly with a mate and their off­spring.

Home Range

Home range size in feath­er­tail pos­sums is un­known.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Not much in known about com­mu­ni­ca­tion in feath­er­tail pos­sums. In gen­eral, pos­sums com­mu­ni­cate though vo­cal­iza­tions and urine mark­ing. (Per­rott, et al., 2000)

Food Habits

Feath­er­tail pos­sums spe­cial­ize in high-en­ergy, high-pro­tein foods such as nec­tar, pollen, and in­sects. They also feed on soft fruits or ex­u­dates such as gums. Most feed­ing oc­curs at night, al­though nurs­ing moth­ers are some­times forced to for­age dur­ing the day to meet the en­ergy de­mands of lac­ta­tion. Feath­er­tail pos­sums have a hindgut that is about 10 cm in length and a small in­tes­tine of 25 cm long. (Flan­nery, 1995; Hume, 1999)

  • Animal Foods
  • insects
  • Plant Foods
  • seeds, grains, and nuts
  • fruit
  • nectar
  • pollen
  • flowers
  • sap or other plant fluids

Pre­da­tion

Feath­er­tail pos­sums are most vul­ner­a­ble to preda­tors when they are on the ground. The pri­mary ter­res­trial preda­tors of small pos­sums in Aus­tralia are foxes. They may also be preyed on by ar­bo­real snakes and owls. (Cowan, 2001; Cowan, 2001)

Ecosys­tem Roles

Feath­er­tail pos­sums are pol­li­na­tors through their nec­tar-feed­ing. They may also dis­perse seeds when they eat fruits. (Nowak, 1991)

The num­ber of known bac­te­r­ial, fun­gal, and viral dis­eases in­fect­ing pos­sums are min­i­mal but re­searchers are spend­ing time in­ves­ti­gat­ing the af­fects of Lep­tospira in­ter­ro­gans, a bac­terium and Paras­trongy­loides tri­chosuri, a ne­ma­tode, as po­ten­tial vec­tors for bi­o­log­i­cal con­trol.

A dis­ease found in pos­sums only is "Wob­bly Pos­sum Dis­ease" (WPD). This dis­ease is char­ac­ter­ized by docil­ity, in­co­or­di­na­tion, loss of bal­ance, and wast­ing. It also has detri­men­tal af­fects in body tis­sue and the brain. WPD can be ef­fi­ciently trans­mit­ted by close con­tact. Many joeys in di­rect con­tact with in­fected pos­sums con­tract WPD. In­fec­tion may be spread in the wild by sev­eral mech­a­nisms, in­clud­ing ag­gres­sive en­coun­ters in which blood is ex­changed, con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of wounds with urine, in­ges­tion of con­t­a­m­i­nated food, trans­fer of mites dur­ing den-shar­ing, and other so­cial en­coun­ters. WPD has po­ten­tial as a bi­o­log­i­cal con­trol agent for pos­sums on the basis that it is read­ily trans­mit­ted be­tween in­di­vid­u­als in close con­tact. (Cowan, 2001; Per­rott, et al., 2000)

  • Ecosystem Impact
  • disperses seeds
  • pollinates
Com­men­sal/Par­a­sitic Species
  • Wob­bly Pos­sum Dis­ease
  • Bovine Tb

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

The feather-tail pos­sum is an ac­tive part of New Guinea’s in­dige­nous peo­ple diet. They are hunted at night in the months of June, July, and Au­gust.

The Wola peo­ple of New Guinea's High­lands use the prized tails of poss­sums such as the Feather-tailed to cre­ate elab­o­rate head­ress for ce­r­i­monies. (Sil­li­toe, 1988; )

  • Positive Impacts
  • food
  • body parts are source of valuable material

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Feath­er­tail pos­sums can be con­sid­ered pests when ac­tive in urban set­tings. Con­trol meth­ods like poi­sons and tox­ins are some­times used to re­duce prob­lem pos­sums. An emerg­ing prob­lem with these erad­i­ca­tion meth­ods is that the ma­te­ri­als are being sent through­out the food web af­fect­ing many species who will prey upon a pos­sum car­cass. More re­search needs to be done on bet­ter meth­ods of con­trol, such as fer­til­ity con­trol, traps, and be­hav­ior changes. Fer­rets are be­com­ing a prob­lem be­cause they are car­ri­ers of Bovine Tb which can be trans­mit­ted to pos­sums. The trans­mis­sion of this dis­ease to live­stock is of major eco­nomic con­cern in Aus­tralia and New Zealand. (Cowan, 2001; Innes and Barker, 1999)

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Feath­er­tail pos­sums are com­mon in suit­able habi­tats, though de­tailed pop­u­la­tion in­for­ma­tion is not avail­able. These pos­sums are on the IUCN Red List of Threat­ened Species and are con­sid­ered low risk/least con­cern.

Con­trib­u­tors

Tanya Dewey (ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web.

denise krentz (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin-Stevens Point, Chris Yahnke (ed­i­tor, in­struc­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin-Stevens Point.

Glossary

Australian

Living in Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, New Guinea and associated islands.

World Map

acoustic

uses sound to communicate

agricultural

living in landscapes dominated by human agriculture.

altricial

young are born in a relatively underdeveloped state; they are unable to feed or care for themselves or locomote independently for a period of time after birth/hatching. In birds, naked and helpless after hatching.

arboreal

Referring to an animal that lives in trees; tree-climbing.

bilateral symmetry

having body symmetry such that the animal can be divided in one plane into two mirror-image halves. Animals with bilateral symmetry have dorsal and ventral sides, as well as anterior and posterior ends. Synapomorphy of the Bilateria.

carnivore

an animal that mainly eats meat

causes or carries domestic animal disease

either directly causes, or indirectly transmits, a disease to a domestic animal

chemical

uses smells or other chemicals to communicate

endothermic

animals that use metabolically generated heat to regulate body temperature independently of ambient temperature. Endothermy is a synapomorphy of the Mammalia, although it may have arisen in a (now extinct) synapsid ancestor; the fossil record does not distinguish these possibilities. Convergent in birds.

food

A substance that provides both nutrients and energy to a living thing.

forest

forest biomes are dominated by trees, otherwise forest biomes can vary widely in amount of precipitation and seasonality.

herbivore

An animal that eats mainly plants or parts of plants.

insectivore

An animal that eats mainly insects or spiders.

island endemic

animals that live only on an island or set of islands.

iteroparous

offspring are produced in more than one group (litters, clutches, etc.) and across multiple seasons (or other periods hospitable to reproduction). Iteroparous animals must, by definition, survive over multiple seasons (or periodic condition changes).

motile

having the capacity to move from one place to another.

native range

the area in which the animal is naturally found, the region in which it is endemic.

nectarivore

an animal that mainly eats nectar from flowers

nocturnal

active during the night

rainforest

rainforests, both temperate and tropical, are dominated by trees often forming a closed canopy with little light reaching the ground. Epiphytes and climbing plants are also abundant. Precipitation is typically not limiting, but may be somewhat seasonal.

scent marks

communicates by producing scents from special gland(s) and placing them on a surface whether others can smell or taste them

seasonal breeding

breeding is confined to a particular season

sedentary

remains in the same area

sexual

reproduction that includes combining the genetic contribution of two individuals, a male and a female

solitary

lives alone

tactile

uses touch to communicate

terrestrial

Living on the ground.

tropical

the region of the earth that surrounds the equator, from 23.5 degrees north to 23.5 degrees south.

visual

uses sight to communicate

viviparous

reproduction in which fertilization and development take place within the female body and the developing embryo derives nourishment from the female.

Ref­er­ences

Collins, L. 1973. Monotremes and Mar­su­pi­als. Wash­ing­ton D. C.: Smith­son­ian In­sti­tute Press.

Cowan, P. 2001. Ad­vances in New Zealand mam­mal­ogy 1990-2000: Bush­tail pos­sum. Jour­nal of The Royal So­ci­ety of New Zealand, 31:1: 15-29. Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 29, 2006 at http://​animaldiversity.​ummz.​umich.​edu/​workspaces/.​accounts/​item570364710/​account_​reference_​edit_​form?​reference_​ident=1f07da07712653b376aee8b02f0f9a1d.

Flan­nery, T. 1995. Mam­mals of New Guinea. Ca­rina, Aus­tralia: Reed Books.

Hume, D. 1999. Mar­su­pial Nu­tri­tion. New York, New York: Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity Press.

Innes, J., G. Barker. 1999. Eco­log­i­cal con­se­quences of tozin use for mam­malian pest con­trol in New Zealand- an overview. New Zealand jour­nal of Ecol­ogy, 23:2: 111-127. Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 29, 2006 at http://​www.​nzes.​org.​nz/​nzje/​free_​issues/​NZJEcol23_​2_​111.​pdf.

Low, B. 1978. En­vi­ron­men­tal Un­cer­tainty and the Parental Strate­gies of Mar­su­pi­als and Pla­cen­tals. The Amer­i­can Nat­u­ral­ist, 112:983: 197-213. Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 28, 2006 at http://​www.​jstor.​org/​view/​00030147/​di006188/​00p01817/​12?​frame=noframe&​userID=8fec23ca@​uwsp.​edu/​01cc99331500501b2f3e7&​dpi=3&​config=jstor.

Nowak, M. 1991. Walker's mam­mals of the world, 5 ed. Bal­ti­more, Mary­land: The Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity Press.

Per­rott, M., C. Wilks, J. Meers. 2000. Routes of trans­mis­sion of wob­bly pos­sum dis­ease. New Zealand Vet­eri­nary Jour­nal, 48:1: 3-8. Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 29, 2006 at http://​www.​ingentaconnect.​com/​content/​nzva/​nzvj/​2000/​00000048/​00000001/​art00001.

Rus­sell, E. 1982. Parental In­vest­ment and De­ser­tion of Young in Mar­su­pi­als. The Amer­i­can Nat­u­ral­ist, 119:5: 744-748. Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 28, 2006 at http://​www.​jstor.​org/​view/​00030147/​di006234/​00p0056f/​0?​frame=noframe&​userID=8fec23ca@​uwsp.​edu/​01cc99331500501b2f3e7&​dpi=3&​config=jstor.

Sil­li­toe, P. 1988. From head-dresses to head-mes­sages: the art of self-dec­o­ra­tion in the high­land of Papua New Guinea. Royal An­thro­po­log­i­cal In­stitue of Great Britain and Ire­land, 23: 298-318. Ac­cessed De­cem­ber 01, 2006 at http://​www.​jstor.​org/​view/​00251496/​dm993947/​99p0128p/​0?​frame=noframe&​userID=8fec23ca@​uwsp.​edu/​01cce4406600501b33bd6&​dpi=3&​config=jstor.

Springer, S., et al. 1989. Rates of sin­gle-copy DNA evo­lu­tion in pha­lan­ger­i­form mar­su­pi­als. De­part­ment of Bi­ol­ogy, Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, River­side; and Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin Zo­o­log­i­cal Mu­seum, Madi­son., 4:331: 331-341. Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 04, 2006 at http://​mbe.​oxfordjournals.​org/​cgi/​reprint/​6/​4/​331.

Temby, I. 2004. Urban wildlife is­sues in Aus­tralia. In­ter­na­tional Urban Wildlife Sym­po­sium: 27. Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 29, 2006 at http://​cals.​arizona.​edu/​pubs/​adjunct/​snr0704/​snr07041d.​pdf.

Ward, S. 1998. Num­ber of teats and pre- and post-na­tal lit­tle sizes in small diprotodont mar­su­pi­als. Jour­nal of Mam­mol­ogy, 79:3: 999-1008. Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 29, 2006 at http://​www.​jstor.​org/​view/​00222372/​ap050320/​05a00320/​0?​frame=noframe&​userID=8fec23ca@​uwsp.​edu/​01cc99332400501b25dd3&​dpi=3&​config=jstor.

Wool­ley, P., A. Al­li­son. 1982.

Ob­ser­va­tions on the feed­ing and re­pro­duc­tive sta­tus of cap­tive feather-tailed pos­sums, Dis­toechu­rus pen­na­tus (Mar­su­pi­alia: Bur­ramyi­dae).
. Aus­tralian Mam­mal­ogy, 5: 285-287.

Ziegler, A. 1977. The Bi­ol­ogy of Mar­su­pi­als,Evo­lu­tion of New Guinea’s mar­su­pial fauna in re­sponse to. Bal­ti­more: Uni­ver­sity Park Press.