Northern common cuscus
Gray cuscus ( Phalanger orientalis)
The Grey cuscus ( Phalanger orientalis) also referred to as common cuscus, a climbing Beutler from the kind of couscous is ( Phalanger ), whose distribution extends from Timor and the Moluccas over northern New Guinea and nearby islands to the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands.
Features
The Grey couscous is generally a large couscous with a short, hard coat and a dark center strip on the back. The coat color is variable, but the females always have a white tail tip. The belly is generally white. Animals of the Kai Islands and Buru are completely white. Copies of Sanana have a reddish -brown fur (including the abdomen). Male gray cuscus from New Guinea are off-white, the females reddish or brown and the boys reddish or gray.
On Guadalcanal come in the northern drier areas of both gray and white copies before, whereas in the humid south of the island exclusively black and dark brown animals. The largest specimens are found in the West ( Timor and the Moluccas ), where the males can weigh nearly five kilograms, Nissan and the southern Solomon Islands, where the adult animals often reach the smallest only a weight of about one kilogram. The head-body length of specimens from New Ireland and New Guinea is 377-472 mm, tail length 278-425 mm, the Hinterfußlänge 40 to 61.9 mm, the ear length 21 to 29 mm and the weight of 1600-3500 grams.
Distribution and habitat
On a large part of the islands, where the Gray cuscus occurs today, it may have been introduced. Two similar species from South and South-East New Guinea and the Cape York Peninsula in Australia, Phalanger mimicus and Phalanger intercastellanus, have been long regarded as a subspecies of the Grey couscous. At Mount Karimui in Papua New Guinea are two related, undescribed species.
The Grey couscous is divided into two subspecies: P. o breviceps ( THOMAS, 1888) from the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands and P. orientalis o (sensu stricto ) from New Guinea, the Moluccas and Timor. The islands around New Guinea, on which the Grey couscous was detected, are Ambon, Bagabag, the Banda Islands, Batanta, Biak - Supiori, Bougainville, Buka, Buru, Seram, Choiseul, Gorom, Guadalcanal, Japen, Karkar, the Kai Islands, Koil, Long, Malaita, Misool, Mioko, New Britain, New Georgia, New Ireland, Nissan, Numfoor, the Russell Islands, Salawati Sanana, Makira, Santa Isabel, Saparua, Su Mios, Umboi, Vella Lavella, and Vokeo Waigeo. In New Guinea the Grey couscous comes up before at altitudes of 1500 m above sea level. The animal was likely introduced (eg, Seram, Buru, Sanana and the Kai Islands) 20,000 or 10,000 years ago, according to New Ireland, 6000 years ago to Timor and the Solomon Islands and on to an unknown time to the Moluccas. The Grey couscous has only few claims to its habitat: It often occurs in rainforests, but also and especially in gardens and in other disturbed areas by humans. Occasionally, he is held as pet.
Lifestyle and food
The Grey couscous is a maverick nocturnal animal during the day staying in a tree hollow. The mating season is probably the throughout the year. After a gestation period of 13 days to get the females per litter one to three cubs that weigh less than a gram at birth. The diet consists of fruit, leaves, flowers, buds and bark. Predators are snakes, Dasyuridae and the Solomon Islands Solomon Eagle.