Bare-tailed woolly opossum

The bare-tailed woolly opossum (Caluromys philander), also called the white-eared opossum, is an opossum species from South America. Its range includes Bolivia, Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela. It is a species restricted only to moist forests.

Like other members of the genus Caluromys, the bare-tailed woolly opossum is a strongly arboreal species of marsupial, differing from other didelphid opossums in having a comparatively large encephalization quotient and smaller litter size. Its name comes from its naked, prehensile tail.

It feeds on fruits, nectar, invertebrates and small vertebrates. Bare-tailed woolly opossums actively climb through the upper canopy of trees as they look for fruit and insects.

References

• Eisenberg, John F.; Redford, Kent H. (May 15, 2000). Mammals of the Neotropics, Volume 3: The Central Neotropics: Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil. University of Chicago Press. pp. 624 (see pp. 79–80). ISBN 978-0226195421. http://books.google.com/?id=p2MDAzCeQQoC&pg=PA79. 
• Gardner, Alfred L. (16 November 2005). "Order Didelphimorphia (pp. 3-18)". In Wilson, Don E., and Reeder, DeeAnn M., eds. Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2 vols. (2142 pp.). p. 4. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC 62265494. http://www.bucknell.edu/msw3/browse.asp?id=10400021.