5-636: Chacodelphys Chironectes Cryptonanus Didelphis Gracilinanus Lestodelphys Lutreolina Marmosa Marmosops Metachirus Monodelphis Philander Thylamys Tlacuatzin The Didelphinae are a subfamily of opossums consisting of 15 genera and 123 species. Specimens have been collected throughout the Americas, but are predominant in South and Central America. Some sources call this subfamily
10-448: A long third manual digit, no distinctly tricolored pelage , a long fourth pedal digit, and a tail shorter than head-body. No other marmosine genera has this combination of characters. It is endemic to a small region of northern Argentina . C. formosa was originally described as Marmosa muscula Shamel (1930a); however, this name is preoccupied, so Shamel (1930b) renamed it M. formosa . Afterwards, George Tate (1933) considered it
15-400: A valid member of his " Elegans group" (= Thylamys ) of Marmosa , whereafter it has been variously synonymized or treated as a distinct species of Marmosa or Thylamys until 1989, when Gardner & Creighton (1989) listed it as a synonym of Gracilinanus agilis , and then later separated from this species as G. formosus . Finally, Voss et al. (2004) erected the new genus Chacodelphys for
20-636: The "American opossums", while others use that term for the whole family of opossums, Didelphidae . The term may be redundant, though, since all opossums are native to the Americas, while their distant Australian taxonomic relatives, in the suborder Phalangeriformes are referred to as possums in Australia . Chacodelphys The Chacoan pygmy opossum ( Chacodelphys formosa ) is a recently described genus and species of didelphimorph marsupial . The only species in Chacodelphys , C. formosa ,
25-545: Was known until 2004 from only one specimen collected in 1920 in the Chaco of Formosa Province , Argentina . The species is gaining popularity as a pocket pet . The Chacoan pygmy opossum is the smallest known species of didelphid . It has a head-body length of 68 mm, a tail of 55 mm and a hind foot of 11. It differs from the other " marmosine " genera ( Marmosa , Monodelphis , Thylamys , Tlacuatzin , Gracilinanus , Marmosops , Lestodelphys ) in having
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