Cercartetus caudatus
The long-tailed pygmy possum is a diprotodont marsupial found in the rainforests of northern Australia and New Guinea. Living at altitudes of above 1,500 m (4,900 ft), it eats insects and nectar, and may eat pollen in place of insects in the wild.

Rique · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- long-tailed pygmy possumPBDB
- Sits inside
- CercartetusPBDB
- Diet
- insectivore, frugivorePBDB, for Burramyidae
- Life habit
- arborealPBDB, for Burramyidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia
Time the record covers
At most 12 thousand years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Cercartetus caudatus on record, most of them in the Holocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
1 occurrences- Holocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Cercartetus caudatus and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Cercartetus caudatus and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
50 taxa- Aepyprymnus rufescens1 site
- Antechinus flavipes1 site
- Antechinus stuartii1 site
- Bettongia penicillata1 site
- Caretta caretta1 site
- Carphodactylus1 site
- Chelodina (Chelydera) rugosa1 site
- Chelodina longicollis1 site
- Chelodina novaeguineae1 site
- Chelonia1 site
- Chelonia mydas1 site
- Crocodylus johnstoni1 site
- Crocodylus porosus1 site
- Dasyurus hallucatus1 site
- Dasyurus maculatus1 site
- Dermochelys coriacea1 site
- Emydura1 site
- Eretmochelys imbricata1 site
- Hydromys1 site
- Isoodon macrourus1 site
- Lagorchestes conspicillatus1 site
- Macropus (Macropus) giganteus1 site
- Macropus (Notamacropus) agilis1 site
- Macropus (Notamacropus) parryi1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Cercartetus caudatus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Cercartetus caudatus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Rique
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Credit
- AMNH Mammal Collections
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Cercartetus caudatus macrurus · AMNH:Mammals:M-155090
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itCercartetus through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Milne-Edwards 1877)