Pygmy Ringtail Possums (Pseudochirulus mayeri) in Papua Indonesia and Papua New Guinea

The common name, pygmy ringtail possum, accentuates the marsupial mammal’s diminutive size. The scientific name, Pseudochirulus mayeri, acknowledges the “false-hand,” human-like look -- from the combination of the Greek words ψευδής (pseudēs, “false”) and χειρό- (cheiró-, “hand”) with the Latin suffix -ulus (“little”) -- of big toes and thumbs respectively opposable to each rear-paw’s and each fore-paw’s clawed, grasping digits. It also attributes importance in 1932 by first official describers, Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2^nd Baron Rothschild (February 8, 1868 – August 27, 1937) and Captain John Guy Dollman (September 4, 1886 – March 13, 1942), to specimens collected by Frederick William Shaw Mayer (September 26, 1899 – September 1, 1989) in the Moluccas and New Guinea between 1928 and 1931.

But scientists accept a confluence of bio-geographical, dietary, ecological and physical factors when defining the hallmark features in the life cycles and natural histories of pygmy ringtails. Bio-geographically, pygmy ringtails cluster throughout Papua Indonesia’s and Papua New Guinea’s Central Cordillera highlands at:

• Elevations of 3,937.01 – 13,779.53 feet (1,200 – 4,200 meters) above sea level;
• Montane forests from Paniai Lakes in the west, through the west-east international border, to Mount Hagen in Western Highland Province in the east.

The specimen inspiring the Rothschild and Dollman descriptions comes from an elevation of 6,003.94 feet (1,830 meters) on the Weyland Range’s Gebroeders Mountains. Village anecdotes and specimens congregate around the Hellwig Mountains in the west and Mount Wilhelm in the east.

Pygmy ringtails therefore become neighborly competitors to such folivores (“leaf-eaters”) as:

• Coppery ringtails (Pseudochirops cupreus);
• D’Albertis’ ringtails (Pseudochirops albertisii);
• Masked ringtails (Pseudochirulus larvatus);
• Plush-coated ringtails (Pseudochirops corinnae);
• Weyland ringtails (Pseudochirulus caroli).

They cooperate in:

• Avoiding conflict over life-sustaining resources and territorial ranges;
• Coordinating nightly forages and forays through trees;
• Eluding predatory raptors and reptiles;
• Having enough arboreal homes without over-populating against survival or under-populating against security;
• Including ceco-fermentation (“bacterial breakdown in the caecum [intestinal pouch]”) and coprophagy (“feces-eating”).

But pygmy ringtails generally do not lack for food since their niches are densely canopied, thickly vegetated mountain slopes. They in fact function as obligate pollinators since they add fungi- and pollen-eating to the ringtail possum’s typical herbivorousness (“plant-eating”).

Ecologically, pygmy ringtails associate with trees that mature to:

• 65.62 – 98.43 feet (20 – 30 meters) below 9,842.52 feet (3,000 meters);
• 39.37 – 59.06 feet (12 – 18 meters) below 11,482.94 – 12,795.28 feet (3,500 – 3,900 meters);
• 13.12 – 16.40 feet (4 -5 meters) in subalpine scrublands.

They choose montane primary forests 6,561,68 – 12,795.28 feet (2,000 – 3,900 meters) above sea level. Despite inhabiting agro-industrialist- and villager-monitored forests, they do not frequent regrown woodlands. They favor:

• Guinea laurels (Cryptocarya) and oaks (Castanopsis);
• Moss-covered Antarctic beeches (Nothofagus);
• Pines (Araucaria) and podocarps (Dacrydium, Papuacedrus, Phyllocladus, Podocarpus);
• Scrub shrubs and trees (Coprosma, Pittosporum, Xanthomyrtus).

Trees help pygmy ringtails elude:

• Eastern grass-owls (Tyto longimembris);
• Greater sooty owls (Tyto tenebricosa);
• Papuan hawk-owls (Uroglaux dimorpha);
• Rufous owls (Ninox rufa).

Sylvan habitats indeed blend with pygmy ringtails. Pygmy ringtails boast:

• Beige to buff paws;
• Blue-grey under-coat;
• Dark whiskers;
• Grey-brown upper-coat and upper-side to the prehensile (“grasping”) tail’s buff-colored, calloused, hairless under-side and ring-curling tip;
• White-patched ear bases.

Despite identical coloring, mature head-body-tail lengths and weights diverge for:

• Females: 12.99 – 15.75 inches (330 – 400 millimeters), 105 – 206 ounces (3.70 – 7.27 grams);
• Males: 12.52 – 14.53 inches (318 – 369 millimeters), 4.05 – 6.28 ounces (115 – 178 grams).

Despite diminutiveness, pygmy ringtails exhibit:

• Cutting, grinding mouthfuls of 6 incisors, 2 canine, 6 premolars, and 8 molars and of 4 incisors, 6 premolars and 8 molars per respectively upper and lower jaw.
• The largest stomach volumes to body sizes of all ringtail possums.

Scrub-, shrub- and wood-lands allow pygmy ringtails to realize 4 – 5-year life cycles and natural histories. Pygmy ringtails build dreys (squirrel-like nests) of foliage, lichen, and moss in tree forks no more than 13.12 feet (4 meters) above root flares. Since pygmy ringtails never stray far from nests, female “consorts” center overlapping territories onto that of their yearly mate even though males never have territorial overlaps. After suspected gestation times of 9 – 13 days, they deliver 1 newborn per litter in year-round breeding seasons which peak in April and May. They raise their young:

• In pouches, 4 – 5 months;
• On backs, until weaning 1 – 2 months later;
• In nests, until physical and sexual maturity 1 year later.

Pygmy ringtails achieve sustainability by being:

• Quarrelsome with nobody;
• Querulous over nothing;
• Quirky in forays;
• Quotidian in appearance.

They commit to arboreal, nocturnal, solitary lives in extended families within overlapping terrains. They communicate by:

• Alarmed screeches and nostalgic twitters by pre-adults;
• Clawed and toothed messages on trunks;
• Fecal and pheromonal smells by all and sternal gland secretions by males;
• Touch.

They epitomize successful pest-controlling, pollination-facilitating, seed-dispersing, and vegetation-monitoring environmentalism. They generally find ways to nip ambient, predatory and rival threats from intruding on home and territorial ranges. The exception is the wildland-urban interface of:

• Agro-industrialism;
• Globally-warming climate change;
• Mining;
• Over-hunting;
• Suburbanization.

But protected areas, scientific research, and worldwide environmentalism weight odds in favor of pygmy ringtail sustainability.

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

ca. 1910 oil on canvas by Joszi Arpad Koppay (March 15, 1857 - September 2, 1927) ~ National Portrait Gallery, London: Kristofer M. Helgen, Roberto Portela Miguez, James Kohen, Lauren Helgen/ZooKeys, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_Lord_Lionel_Walter_Rothschild_-_ZooKeys-255-103-g003-bottom_left.jpeg; via Pensoft Publishers / ZooKeys @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/showimg.php?filename=oo_25946.jpg

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:Pygmy_Ringtail_Possum_area.png

Topographic map of New Guinea. Created with GMT from publicly released GLOBE data.: Sadalmelik, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:New_Guinea_Topography.png

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