AnAge entry for Trichosurus vulpecula
Classification (HAGRID: 02562)
- Taxonomy
-
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia (Taxon entry)
Order: Diprotodontia
Family: Phalangeridae
Genus: Trichosurus
- Species
- Trichosurus vulpecula
- Common name
- Brush-tailed possum
Lifespan, ageing, and relevant traits
- Maximum longevity
- 15.9 years (captivity)
- Source
- ref. 671
- Sample size
- Medium
- Data quality
- Acceptable
- Observations
Only 25% of individuals survive to live a second year. Compared to other species of the same genus, development appears to be faster in these animals [0434]. One captive specimen lived for 15.9 years [0671].
Life history traits (averages)
- Female sexual maturity
- 315 days
- Male sexual maturity
- 730 days
- Gestation
- 17 days
- Weaning
- 204 days
- Litter size
- 1 (viviparous)
- Litters per year
- 1.5
- Inter-litter interval
- 274 days
- Weight at birth
- 0.279 g
- Weight at weaning
- 740 g
- Adult weight
- 2,395 g
- Postnatal growth rate
- 0.0206 days-1 (from Gompertz function)
- Maximum longevity residual
- 99%
Metabolism
- Typical body temperature
- 309ºK or 36.0ºC or 96.8ºF
- Basal metabolic rate
- 3.8000 W
- Body mass
- 1993.5 g
- Metabolic rate per body mass
- 0.001906 W/g
References
- [1143] Nussey et al. (2013), Senescence in natural populations of animals: widespread evidence and its implications for bio-gerontology (PubMed)
- [0978] Jones et al. (2009), PanTHERIA: a species-level database of life history, ecology, and geography of extant and recently extinct mammals
- [0671] Richard Weigl (2005), Longevity of Mammals in Captivity; from the Living Collections of the World
- [0247] Clinchy et al. (2004), Body size, age and paternity in common brushtail possums (Trichosurus vulpecula) (PubMed)
- [0036] Savage et al. (2004), The predominance of quarter-power scaling in biology
- [0420] White and Seymour (2003), Mammalian basal metabolic rate is proportional to body mass2/3 (PubMed)
- [0434] Ronald Nowak (1999), Walker's Mammals of the World
- [0455] Virginia Hayssen et al. (1993), Asdell's Patterns of Mammalian Reproduction: A Compendium of Species-Specific Data
- [0731] Zullinger et al. (1984), Fitting sigmoid equations to mammalian growth curves
External Resources
- Integrated Taxonomic Information System
- ITIS 552696
- Animal Diversity Web
- ADW account (if available)
- Encyclopaedia of Life
- Search EOL
- NCBI Taxonomy
- Taxonomy ID 9337
- Entrez
- Search all databases
- Ageing Literature
- Search Google Scholar or Search PubMed
- Images
- Google Image search
- Internet
- Search Google