Green Ringtail Possum

By Bruce G. Marcot, Ecology Picture of the Week:

Peering through branches from its daytime resting site is this green ringtail possum, an uncommon denizen of the rainforest belt of northern Australia.  

Green ringtail possums may be threatened from loss of its primary rainforest habitat, although this individual seemed content to reside in a tree in a housing suburb.  They are usually solitary and typically nocturnal, those large eyes developed to gather the dim light of night.  

They do not use tree hollows or build nests as do other possums.  They are also nearly always silent.  They also produce but one young at a time. 

They are very specialist feeders.  They eat only leaves (they are "folivores"), and seem to select for mature leaves largely from only a few specific tree species.  This might put them at some risk, if those trees were to disappear from the forest ... or if the forest itself was to disappear.  

Green ringtail possums are a "local endemic" of northeastern Queensland and as such have a very limited overall distribution there and are found nowhere else in the world.  

So their very specialized diet, their narrow endemic distribution, their solitary behavior, and their slow reproductive rate may all combine to put this species of possum at greater risk.  

  --Bruce G. Marcot

Image and text © Bruce G. Marcot, Ph.D. Research Wildlife Ecologist,
who produces the Ecology Picture of the Week website.