Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Didelphimorphia > Didelphidae > Thylamys > Thylamys elegans

Thylamys elegans (Elegant Fat-tailed Mouse Opossum)

Synonyms: Didelphis elegans

Wikipedia Abstract

The elegant fat-tailed mouse opossum (Thylamys elegans), also known as the Chilean mouse opossum, is an opossum from central Chile. The type species of Thylamys, it was first described by English naturalist George Robert Waterhouse in 1839. This medium-sized opossum is characterized by black rings around the eyes, white limbs, gray to light brown coat, lighter flanks and underbelly and a thick 12.7–14.6 centimetres (5.0–5.7 in) long tail covered with hairs. It is crepuscular (active mainly around twilight) and lives in nests in tree hollows or under rocks and roots. This opossum feeds mainly on arthropods and larvae apart from fruits. Litter size is typically between 11 and 13. The elegant fat-tailed opossum can occur in a variety of habitats – from cloud forests to chaparrals. The IUCN cl
View Wikipedia Record: Thylamys elegans

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
5
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
28
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 11.96
EDGE Score: 2.56
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  28.9 grams
Diet [2]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Carnivore (Vertebrates), Frugivore
Diet - Fruit [2]  10 %
Diet - Invertibrates [2]  80 %
Diet - Vertibrates [2]  10 %
Forages - Scansorial [2]  100 %
Litter Size [3]  13
Litters / Year [3]  2
Maximum Longevity [3]  2 years
Snout to Vent Length [3]  4.724 inches (12 cm)

Ecoregions

Name Countries Ecozone Biome Species Report Climate Land
Use
Atacama desert Chile Neotropic Deserts and Xeric Shrublands
Chilean matorral Chile Neotropic Mediterranean Forests, Woodlands, and Scrub
Sechura desert Peru Neotropic Deserts and Xeric Shrublands
Valdivian temperate forests Chile, Argentina Neotropic Temperate Broadleaf and Mixed Forests

Protected Areas

Name IUCN Category Area acres Location Species Website Climate Land Use
El Rey National Park II 110298 Salta, Argentina

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Chilean Winter Rainfall-Valdivian Forests Chile No

Predators

Athene cunicularia (Burrowing Owl)[4]
Bubo virginianus (Great Horned Owl)[4]
Buteo polyosoma (Variable Hawk)[4]
Tyto alba (Barn Owl)[4]

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Didelphoxyuris thylamisis[5]

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Felisa A. Smith, S. Kathleen Lyons, S. K. Morgan Ernest, Kate E. Jones, Dawn M. Kaufman, Tamar Dayan, Pablo A. Marquet, James H. Brown, and John P. Haskell. 2003. Body mass of late Quaternary mammals. Ecology 84:3403
♦ 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
♦ 4Jorrit 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.
♦ 5Gibson, 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