#0238 · 🦊 mammals
Eastern Ring-tailed Possum
🇳🇱 Oostelijke Koeskoes ·Pseudocheirus peregrinus
7 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
what is it?
The common ringtail possum ( Pseudocheirus peregrinus , Greek for "false hand" and Latin for "pilgrim" or "alien") is an Australian marsupial. It lives in a variety of habitats and eats a variety of leaves of both native and introduced plants, as well as flowers, fruits and sap. This possum also consumes a special type of faeces that is produced during the daytime when it is resting in a nest. This behaviour is called coprophagia and is similar...
base stats
Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).
fun facts
- No confirmed wild sightings in the Netherlands on iNaturalist: you'd have to travel for this one.
- 16,884 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Scientifically named by Pieter Boddaert in 1785 (241 years ago).
fact sheet
- English
- Eastern Ring-tailed Possum
- Nederlands
- Oostelijke Koeskoes
- scientific name
- Pseudocheirus peregrinus
- class
- Mammalia
- order
- Diprotodontia
- family
- Pseudocheiridae
- IUCN Red List
- LC · least concern
- sightings in NL
- 0
- sightings worldwide
- 16,884
- GBIF records in NL
- 0
- weight
- —
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1785 by Pieter Boddaert
IUCN in Dutch: niet bedreigd. Blank means the sources don't say.
relatives· Pseudocheiridae
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 42775, Wikidata Q928390, GBIF 2440062, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.