#pseudocheiridae

Herbert River Ringtail Possum Pseudochirulus herbertensis

A species of possum found in northeastern Queensland, Australia. The Herbert River ringtail's diet mainly consists of leaves with high levels of protein. This makes them vulnerable to climate change, since when CO2 levels increase, it leads to a change in the metabolic process of trees thus "chang[ing] the balance of protein in their leaves" and leading to an increase in production of tannins by the tree.

A southern greater glider (Petauroides volans) perches in a tree in Queensland, Australia

Sure! I'll do Greater Gliders first.

Greater glider!

Green ringtail possum (Pseudochirops archeri)

Photo from Wiki, and the paper by Kaori Yokochi, Roberta Bencini - Yokochi K, Bencini R (2015) A remarkably quick habituation and high use of a rope bridge by an endangered marsupial, the western ringtail possum. 

One of the most special finds during the trip down to Yallingup - in fact, one was in the backyard. They’re also, by quite a long way, the rarest animal I’ve ever covered in the blog - they’re critically endangered. 

The ngwayir is a stocky cat-sized marsupial with a long prehensile tail with a whitish tip. They’re mostly nocturnal, foraging through the upper canopy of trees, feeding on young leaves, flowers and fruit. As with other ringtail species, the tough fibrous leaves need to be digested twice to extract sufficient nutrition, and they don’t regurgitate it either - they’re coprophagous.

Especially favoured are the flowers and buds of  the peppermint tree Agonis flexuosa. That species is a very common plant on the coastal plains of the SW - or it used to be. Since huge areas of the SW coastal plains have been clearfelled for farming, or overrun by expanding towns, and climate change is already affecting flowering times and nutritiousness of the buds and flowers, and foxes and cats and cars are waiting to kill any possum that comes down to the ground to get to the next tree, the species has been reduced to scattered populations in a lot of trouble. Some of those populations are actually within the urbanised areas of Busselton and Albany, and rope bridges connecting trees and crossing roads have been built to try and help them. Doesn’t stop them being killed by cars though - I also saw one dead :(

A Vogelkop ringtail possum (Pseudochirulus schlegeli) in Arfak Mountains, West Papua, Indonesia