Cuscus ( or ) is the
common name
In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often contrast ...
generally given to the
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
within the four
genera
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclat ...
of
Australasia
Australasia is a region that comprises Australia, New Zealand and some neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologica ...
n
possum of the family
Phalangeridae
The Phalangeridae are a family of mostly nocturnal marsupials native to Australia, New Guinea, and Eastern Indonesia, including the cuscuses, brushtail possums, and their close relatives. Considered a type of possum, most species are arboreal, ...
with the most tropical distribution:
* ''
Ailurops
The bear cuscuses are the members of the genus ''Ailurops''. They are marsupials of the family Phalangeridae.
The bear cuscuses are arboreal marsupials. Almost nothing is known of their status and ecology. Although some scientists assign all po ...
''
* ''
Phalanger
''Phalanger'' (from the Greek ''phalangion'', meaning spider's web, from their webbed (fused) toesChambers English Dictionary) is a genus of possums. Its members are found on New Guinea, the Maluku Islands, other nearby small islands, and Aust ...
''
* ''
Spilocuscus
''Spilocuscus'' is a genus of marsupial in the family Phalangeridae. Its members are found on the Cape York Peninsula of Australia, New Guinea, and smaller nearby islands. It contains the following species:
*Admiralty Island cuscus, ''Spilocusc ...
''
* ''
Strigocuscus
Dwarf cuscus (''Strigocuscus'') is a nocturnal, arboreal marsupial genus in the family Phalangeridae found only in Sulawesi (the largest island in Wallacea) and some of its surrounding small offshore islands. Due to the unique biogeography o ...
''
The name is also applied in parts of Indonesia to the
Sunda slow loris
The Sunda slow loris (''Nycticebus coucang'') or greater slow loris is a Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhine primate and a species of slow loris native to Indonesia, West Malaysia, southern Thailand and Singapore. It measures from head to tail and wei ...
, where people do not distinguish this from the "kuskus"
possums
Possum may refer to:
Animals
* Phalangeriformes, or possums, any of a number of arboreal marsupial species native to Australia, New Guinea, and Sulawesi
** Common brushtail possum (''Trichosurus vulpecula''), a common possum in Australian urban a ...
. Note however, that the loris, being a
primate
Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians (monkeys and apes, the latter including huma ...
, is unrelated to the other cuscus species. Cuscus are
marsupial
Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a po ...
s, even though they have some appearances, traits and attributes like those of
lemur
Lemurs ( ) (from Latin ''lemures'' – ghosts or spirits) are Strepsirrhini, wet-nosed primates of the Superfamily (biology), superfamily Lemuroidea (), divided into 8 Family (biology), families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 exist ...
s of
Madagascar
Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...
, which are
prosimian
Prosimians are a group of primates that includes all living and extinct Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhines (lemurs, Lorisoidea, lorisoids, and Adapiformes, adapiforms), as well as the Haplorhini, haplorhine tarsiers and their extinct relatives, the O ...
s.
See also
*
Reduplication
In linguistics, reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change.
The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edwa ...
Further reads
* New Species of Cuscus. N.p., n.p, 1900.
* Image, Cool. Cuscus Journal: 150 Page Lined Notebook/Diary. N.p., CreateSpace Publishing Platform, 2016.
* Salas, Leonardo A.. Comparative Ecology and Behavior of the Mountain Cuscus (Phalanger Carmelitae), Silky Cuscus (Phalanger Sericeus) and Coppery Ringtail (Pseudochirops Cupreus) at Mt. Stolle, Papua New Guinea. N.p., University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 2002.
* Nowak, Ronald M.. Walker's Marsupials of the World. United States, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.
References
Mammal common names
Possums
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