Brown-eared Woolly Opossum

Fascinating facts about the Brown-eared Woolly Opossum

• A brown-eared woolly opossum can fit on a ruler: its body measures just 20-32 cm long, while its bushy tail adds another 33-45 cm, and it tips the scales at only 31-52 g. yet the animal carries a braincase larger than most similarly sized marsupials, giving it keen senses for night-time foraging.
• You'll find this opossum from sea level up to the cloud-forests of the Andes: it normally lives below 500 m, but explorers have recorded individuals as high as 2,600 m. Its range stretches east of the Andes across Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and beyond.
• When night falls, fruit makes up 80-85 % of this opossum's diet, with the remaining 15-20 % coming from insects and small vertebrates. By sipping flower nectar, it likely pollinates trees such as Pseudobombax tomentosum and Quararibea cordata, turning a nocturnal snack into a vital service for tropical forest reproduction.
• Females cycle every 27-29 days, can become pregnant at just 7-8 months old, and may produce up to three litters a year. Each litter holds one to four babies, with Amazon Basin females usually birthing 1-2 young and southern populations 3-4, showing how reproductive output flexes with local conditions.
• In a central Amazon study, researchers counted 13.3 brown-eared woolly opossums per square kilometre, catching most of them 5-15 m above ground in the forest canopy. Though the IUCN lists the species as Least Concern because of its broad range and presumed large numbers, ongoing deforestation threatens those arboreal homes.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia
• Animal Diversity Web

At a glance

About the Brown-eared Woolly Opossum

In the dense, emerald canopies of the Neotropical rainforest, the brown-eared woolly opossum navigates with effortless agility, its prehensile tail grasping and releasing branches with a gentle precision that belies its nocturnal, insectivorous nature. As it pads through the darkness, the soft, woolly fur that gives it its name rippling in the faint moonlight, this opossum embodies a quiet, unassuming resilience, its very existence a testament to the boundless adaptability of life in the most storied of ecosystems. With eyes shining like lanterns in the dark, it moves unseen, a phantom of the forest, its presence felt only in the faint rustle of leaves and the soft whisper of its passage.

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