Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Diprotodontia > Phalangeridae > Trichosurus > Trichosurus vulpecula

Trichosurus vulpecula (Common Brushtail)

Synonyms: Didelphis vulpecula

Wikipedia Abstract

The common brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula, from the Greek for "furry tailed" and the Latin for "little fox", previously in the genus Phalangista) is a nocturnal, semi-arboreal marsupial of the family Phalangeridae, it is native to Australia, and the second largest of the possums. The common brushtail possum was introduced to New Zealand in 1837 to establish a fur industry, but in the mild subtropical climate of New Zealand, and with few to no natural predators, it thrived to the extent that it became a major agricultural and conservation pest.
View Wikipedia Record: Trichosurus vulpecula

Invasive Species

View ISSG Record: Trichosurus vulpecula

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
4
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
25
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 9.89
EDGE Score: 2.39
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  5.28 lbs (2.395 kg)
Birth Weight [1]  0.279 grams
Diet [2]  Frugivore, Granivore, Herbivore
Diet - Fruit [2]  20 %
Diet - Plants [2]  60 %
Diet - Seeds [2]  20 %
Forages - Arboreal [2]  100 %
Female Maturity [1]  10 months 15 days
Male Maturity [1]  2 years
Gestation [1]  17 days
Litter Size [1]  1
Litters / Year [1]  1.5
Maximum Longevity [1]  16 years
Nocturnal [2]  Yes
Snout to Vent Length [3]  21 inches (53 cm)
Weaning [1]  6 months 24 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Southwest Australia Australia No

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Consumers

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 3Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 4Brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) diet in a north Westland mixed-beech (Nothofagus) forest, C. Hamish Cochrane, David A. Norton, Craig J. Miller and Robert B. Allen, New Zealand Journal of Ecology (2003) 27(1): 61-65
♦ 5Diet of herbivorous marsupials in a Eucalyptus marginata forest and their impact on the understorey vegetation, K A Shepherd, G W Wardell-Johnson, W A Loneragan & D T Bell, Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia, 80:47-54, 1997
♦ 6NUTRITIONAL PROPERTIES OF SOME FRUITS EATEN BY THE POSSUM TRICHOSURUS VULPECULA IN A NEW ZEALAND BROADLEAF – PODOCARP FOREST, C. K. WILLIAMS, New Zealand Journal of Ecology 5: 16-20
♦ 7NUTRITIONAL PROPERTIES OF SOME FRUITS EATEN BY THE POSSUM TRICHOSURUS VULPECULA IN A NEW ZEALAND BROADLEAF – PODOCARP FOREST, C. K. WILLIAMS, New Zealand Journal of Ecology 5: 16-20 (1982)
♦ 8Olsen, J., Judge, D., Fuentes, E., Rose, AB and Debus, S. (2010). Diets of Wedge-tailed Eagles (Aquila audax) and Little Eagles (Hieraaetus morphnoides) breeding near Canberra, Australia Journal of Raptor Research 44: 50–61
♦ 99.1 Dingo, Canis lupus dingo, L.K. Corbett, Sillero-Zubiri, C., Hoffmann, M. and Macdonald, D.W. (eds). 2004. Canids: Foxes, Wolves, Jackals and Dogs. Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. IUCN/SSC Canid Specialist Group. Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK. x + 430 pp.
♦ 10Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 11Dasyurus maculatus, Menna E. Jones, Robert K. Rose, and Scott Burnett, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 676, pp. 1–9 (2001)
♦ 12Species Interactions of Australia Database, Atlas of Living Australia, Version ala-csv-2012-11-19
♦ 13Feeding Habits of the Diamond Python, Morelia s. spilota: Ambush Predation by a Boid Snake, David J. Slip and Richard Shine, Journal of Herpetology, Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 323-330, 1988
♦ 14Diet and habitat of the powerful owl (Ninox strenua) living near Melbourne, Elizabeth Lavazanian, M. App. Sc. thesis, Deakin University (1996)
♦ 15International Flea Database
♦ 16Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0