Western Ringtail Possum - Description

Description

The Western Ringtail has a head and body length of 320–400 mm, a tail length of 300–400 mm, and a weight of 820-1100 g (1300 g). It has dark grey brown fur with light patches behind the ears and creamy white, sometimes greyish, underparts. It differs from the Common Ringtail Possum by lacking any rufous colouration. It has a long prehensile tail with a distinctive white tip.

The original description of the western population was as a separate species, Pseudocheirus occidentalis, though later authors classified it as a subspecies of Pseudocheirus peregrinus. Due to contradictory research, a recommendation to reinstate the species status—though a widely held view—has not been published.

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