142 STRUCTURE OF KOALA CHAP. 
species of the genus, which extend through pretty well the 
entire Australian region. The term “ flying” as applied to these 
and the other “ flying” genera is of course an exaggeration. The 
animals cannot fly upwards; they can only descend in a skim- 
ming fashion, the folds of skin breaking their fall. 2. breviceps is 
perhaps the best-known species. The body is 8, the tail 9 
inches long. 
Petauroides seems to be chiefly distinguished from Pefaurus 
by the fact that, as in its ally Dactylopsila, the tail 1s partly 
naked terminally. In Petauwrus and Gymnobelideus the tail is 
bushy to the very end, including its extreme tip below. 
A third genus of Flying Phalangers is the minute Acrobates, 
which has a distichous tail like that of Distaechurus. It is not 
more than 6 inches in length including the tail. As to these 
Flying Phalangers it is exceedingly instructive to observe that 
the same method of “flight” has been apparently evolved three 
times; for the three genera are each of them specially related 
to a separate type of non-flying Phalanger. The same observa- 
tion can be made about the Flyimg Squirrels, Anomalurus and 
Sciuropterus. The dental formula is 13 C$ Pm3M3. The 
ears are thinly clad with hair. There are four teats. 
Sub-Fam. 2. Phascolarctinae.—The Koala, or Native Bear, 
Phascolarctos cinereus, is the only representative of its sub-family. 
It is, like the Wombat, aberrant in the lack of an obvious tail. 
The absence of this appendage is curious in an arboreal creature 
whose near allies have a long and prehensile one. The structure 
of the Koala was investigated by the late Mr. W. A. Forbes.' 
There are some unexpected points of likeness to the Wombat : 
thus they agree in the absence of the tail, in the structure of the 
stomach, and in the great subdivision of the lobes of the liver. 
The brain, however, is smooth, and the caecum is exceedingly large 
and complicated in structure, that of the Wombat being short. 
That both animals have cheek-pouches is perhaps due to similar 
habits of temporarily storing masses of food. This animal has 
only eleven pairs of ribs. The tail has only seven or eight verte- 
bra, and these have no chevron-bones. 
A peculiarity of the skull is seen in the great size of the 
alisphenoid bulla, which is comparable in size and appearance with 
that of the Pig. As in the Kangaroos, the atlas is incomplete below. 
1 “On some Points in the Anatomy of the Koala,” Proc. Zool. Soc. 1881, p. 180. 
