﻿92 Allen's naturalist's lihrary, 



THE RING-TAILED PHALANGERS. GENUS PSEUDOCIIIRUS. 

 FseudochiriiSy Ogilby, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1836, p. 36. 



Size large or medium ; fur short and rather woolly ; ears 

 medium or short, hairy behind. Fore toes sub-equal, the two 

 inner ones markedly opposable to the other three ; their re- 

 lative lengths in the order 4, 3, 5, 2, i. Claws moderate ; 

 soles of both fore and hind feet naked, with large rounded 

 and striated pads. Tail long and tapering, markedly prehen- 

 sile, and its tip naked inferiorly for a variable distance. Four 

 teats. The upper molar teeth are large and oblong, with the 

 rounded tubercles of the preceding genus modified into sharp 

 cusps with curved ridges radiating from them ; those of the 

 lower jaw having a nearly similar structure. 



The Ring-tailed Phalangers, of which there are half-a-score of 

 species, while agreeing with the True Phalangers in their ar- 

 boreal and leaf-eating habits, have a wider geographical range, 

 extending over New Guinea, as well as Australia and Tasmania. 

 According to the author of the British Museum Catalogue of 

 Marsupials they naturally fall into three groups, of which the 

 common Ring-tailed Phalanger, D'Albertis' Phalanger, and the 

 Hoary Phalanger, may respectively be regarded as typical. Of 

 these, the first group is confined to Australia and Tasmania, 

 and the third to New Guinea, while the two representatives of 

 the second group respectively inhabit North Australia and New 

 Guinea. With the exception of the common species, all the 

 members of the genus appear to have relatively small geo- 

 graphical ranges. 



From the crescent-like structure of the crowns of the molar 

 teeth — a feature in which they make some approach to the 

 Koala — it may be pretty confidently considered that these 

 animals are somewhat more specialised than the True Phalan- 

 gers ; although it should be observed that there is an approxi- 



