Lowland Ringtail Possums (Pseudochirulus canescens) of Coastal Papua Indonesia and Papua New Guinea

Lowland ringtails accept altitudes up to 4,265.09 feet (1,300 meters). But their habitats actually begin at sea level. Their niches in fact can be found along the eastern and northern coasts of Papua New Guinea, on the east side of the southwest Pacific Ocean island of New Guinea. They also claim the northern and western coasts of Papua Indonesia, on the west side of the world's fourth-largest island. They do not count at all among the island's southern coastal fauna and flora. But they additionally do number among the wildlife on Indonesia's Salawati and Yapen Islands. In all cases, their bio-geographical distribution extends from the coast inwards until the terrain completes the transition from hills to mountains.

Coastal vegetation abounds before the terrain shifts to hilly lowlands. Trees are what lowland ringtails seek:

• Anisoptera;

• Calophyllum;

• Casuarina;

• Terminalia.

Wooded lowlands contribute to lowland ringtail survival through:

• Irregular, multi-tiered canopies from emergents and understories below the prevailing canopy;

• Mixed climbers, epiphytes (with air-borne roots “upon another plant”), ferns, palms, and shrubs.

Hill forests follow alluvial forests as the island's terrain rolls upward. Surface vegetation joins with understories of open shrubs and sporadic palms to create closed, lower-lying canopies. Woody plants grow dense, stout and tall. Trees typically have mature heights of 164.04+ feet (50+ meters). The dominant stands typically involve species of:

• Celtis;

• Ficus;

• Horsfieldia;

• Myristica;

• Pometia;

• Terminalia.

Stands of 229.66-foot (70+-meter) Araucaria punctuate lowland forests. 

The wildlife associations of lowland ringtails all arise therefore in primary and secondary hill forests. Lowland ringtails generally attempt to elude predatory raptors and reptiles through the typical ringtail possum's actively avoiding:

• Habitats invasions;

• Territorial threats.

They count as neighbors the world's:

• Biggest butterflies, Queen Alexandra's birdwings (Ornithoptera alexandrae);

• Largest pigeons, Southern crowneds (Goura scheepmakeri);

• Longest lizards, Salvadore's monitors (Varanus salvadorii);

• Poisonous birds (Pitohui spp).

They have the possibility of overlapping in bio-geographical ranges with such fellow ring-tailed possums as:

• Arfak Mountain ringtails (Pseudochirulus schlegeli);

• D'Albertis' ringtails (Pseudochirops albertisii);

• Golden green plush-coated ringtails (Pseudochirops corinnae);

• Masked ringtails (Pseudochirulus larvatus);

• Moss-forest painted ringtails (Pseudochirulus forbesi);

• Reclusive ringtails (Pseudochirops coronatus).

Common names often answer to such memory tags for visual identification as:

• Bio-geographical distribution;

• Physical features.

The common name lowland ringtail indeed appreciates the marsupial mammal's non-mountainous occurrences. The less frequent, more old-fashioned common name of hoary ringtail conjures up images of age and ghostliness through its synonymous associations with grey-white appearances and traits. It indeed describes the lowland ringtail's predominant coloration. Dark colors include:

• Striping dividing the forehead and the length of the back;

• The tail prehensilely (“graspingly”) slide-resistant on the underside and prettily ring-curling at the tip.

Light colors involve:

• Brown-tinged grey heads, limbs, and upper-sides;

• Fuscous (grey-brown) ears whose bases are dramatically dark and faces whose front is strikingly striped;

• Grey-based brownish-buff under-sides.   

Scientists accept slight variations in lowland ringtail appearance and bio-geography. These differences contribute to trinomial (“three-name”) classifications beyond binomial (“two-name”) identifications. The current binomial categorization draws upon George Robert Waterhouse's (March 6, 1810 – January 21, 1888) first official taxonomic description in 1846, as:

• A Natural History of the Mammalia publisher, 1846-;
• Somers Town-born English naturalist.

It emphasizes the privotal structural features of:

• “False little hands” (in the genus Pseudochirulus);

• “Hound-like” impression (in the species canescens).

It currently honors as subspecies:

• Pseudochirulus canescens avarus, P.c. dammermani, and P.c. gyrator (per Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas [February 21, 1858 – June 16, 1929] in 1906, 1922, and 1904);

• P.c. canescens (the nominate [“first-described”]).

Behavioral shifts never accompany bio-geographical and physical subtleties among subspecies. Lowland ringtails always apply:

• Day-eliminated feces and night-foraged food (bark, flowers, foliage, fruits, invertebrates, vertebrates) to digesting, hindgut-fermenting, and vacating twice-over;

• Forays to night-time arborealism;

• Sleep to tree-based diurnalism.

With just 2 of 4 mammae functional, adult females deliver 1 – 2 offspring per litter during year-round breeding for:

• Pouch-confinement and back-riding until weaning;

• Quarters-sharing until maturity.

Matured offspring exhibit with:

• Dentition: 6 incisors, 2 canines, 6 premolars, and 8 molars and 4 incisors, 6 premolars, and 8 molars respectively per upper and low jaws;

• Head-and-body lengths: 7.87 – 9.06 inches (200 – 230 millimeters);

• Tail lengths: 6.69 – 7.87 inches (170 – 200 millimeters).

Coastal locations exude as much precariousness and stress as beauty and opportunity. Their wildlife generally face head-on:

• Clashes between modernity and tradition;

• Interfaces between urban- and wild-lands.

Lowland ringtails particularly face bio-geographical stresses which occur from the Fakfak Mountains in the northwest all the way to Milne Bay in the southeast. Their territorial range indeed follows the historic and present foci in the New Guinean archipelago's development for:

• Eco-tourism;

• Industrial-, residential-, and road-construction;

• Logging;

• Mining;

• Plantation agriculture.

It includes overlaps with descendants of:

• Pre-European settlement villagers;

• 300 years of immigration.

Against both modern and traditional extremes, protected area status is effective except against:

• Arrow-, bow-, club-, torch-, trap-wielding villagers over-hunting ceremonial flesh and fur;

• Globally-warmed climate change.

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

panorama of Raja Ampat Islands; J. Chase, "Which Came First," PLOS Biology, vol. 10, issue 12 (December 2012), e1001457: Jonathan Chase, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Raja_Ampat_Islands_-_journal.pbio.1001457.g001.png

Distribution data from IUCN Red List: Chermundy/IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, species assessors and the authors of the spatial data, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lowland_Ringtail_Possum_area.png

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