Cercartetus nanus
The eastern pygmy possum is a diprotodont marsupial of south-eastern Australia. Occurring from southern Queensland to eastern South Australia and also Tasmania, it is found in a range of habitats, including rainforest, sclerophyll forest, woodland and heath.

John Gould · Public Domain · 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
- eastern 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 least 5.2 million years on record.
The record covers at least 5.333 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 33.9 Mya to 0 Mya.
14 occurrences of Cercartetus nanus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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
14 occurrences- Oligocene3%
- Miocene4%
- Pleistocene92%
- Holoceneunder 1%
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 nanus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Cercartetus nanus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
163 taxa- Dasyurus viverrinus12 sites
- Mastacomys12 sites
- Pseudocheirus peregrinus12 sites
- Petaurus breviceps11 sites
- Pseudomys11 sites
- Rattus11 sites
- Antechinus flavipes10 sites
- Isoodon obesulus10 sites
- Perameles gunnii10 sites
- Cercartetus lepidus9 sites
- Notomys9 sites
- Potorous platyops9 sites
- Sminthopsis crassicaudata9 sites
- Sminthopsis murina9 sites
- Bettongia8 sites
- Bettongia lesueur8 sites
- Conilurus8 sites
- Macropus rufogriseus8 sites
- Phascogale tapoatafa8 sites
- Perameles bougainville7 sites
- Potorous tridactylus7 sites
- Simosthenurus occidentalis7 sites
- Thylacinus cynocephalus7 sites
- Thylacoleo carnifex7 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 14 sites for Cercartetus nanus, 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
8 references- Pleistocene fossil vertebrate sites of the South East region of South Australia4
- Late Quaternary Small Mammal Faunas of the Naracoorte Caves World Heritage Area3
- Pleistocene fossil vertebrate sites of the South East region of South Australia II2
- Palaeontological excavation and taphonomic investigation of the late Pleistocene fossil deposit in Grant Hall, Victoria Fossil Cave, Naracoorte, South Australia1
- Fossil occurrences of Cercartetus nanus (Marsupialia, Burramyidae) in South Australia1
- Analysis of a late Quaternary deposit and small mammal fauna from Nettle Cave, Jenolan, New South Wales1
- The upper fossil fauna of the Henschke fossil cave, Naracoorte, South Australia1
- Small fossil vertebrates from Victoria Cave, Naracoorte, South Australia. I. Potoroinae (Macropodidae), Petauridae and Burramyidae (Marsupialia)1
Each of the 14 occurrences 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. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Cercartetus nanus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- John Gould
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Cercartetus nanus was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Desmarest 1818)