Species Tasmanian pygmy possum

Tasmanian pygmy possum

The Tasmanian pygmy possum (Cercartetus lepidus), also known as the little pygmy possum, is the world's smallest possum. It was first described by Oldfield Thomas in 1888, after he identified that a museum specimen labelled as an eastern pygmy possum in fact represented a species then unknown to science. The holotype resides in the British Museum of Natural History.

The Tasmanian pygmy possum is found throughout Tasmania, but was at one time thought to be extinct elsewhere. In 1964, a living animal was discovered on Kangaroo Island in South Australia, and further populations have since been discovered in the Murray-Darling basin in South Australia and Victoria. There are no formally recognised subspecies, although it has been proposed, based on genetic information, that the mainland and Tasmanian populations may be subspecies, or even entirely separate species. They inhabit sclerophyll forest, mallee, and open heathland vegetation.

The Tasmanian pygmy possum is nocturnal and arboreal. It lives primarily in shrubland or forest undergrowth, and, although a good climber, rarely ventures into the higher branches of trees, presumably because this would make it more vulnerable to avian predators. Pygmy possums use strips of bark to construct dome-like nests in tree cavities or rotten wood, but are solitary animals that do not share their nests with other individuals except for their own young.