Tous ayamaruensis (Aplin in Aplin et al., 1999:365)

Ring-tailed glider, Ayamaru greater gliding possum

Taxonomy & Nomenclature

Synonyms: Petauroides ayamaruensis Aplin in Aplin et al., 1999:365; Petauroides ayamaruensis Aplin, Pasveer & Boles, 1999:365 (misattribution; see Long et al., 2002:25)

Conservation Status

Last record: Late Quaternary (Aplin et al. 1999); early Holocene (7,500-6,000 yBP) (Pasveer 1998, 2004; Pasveer et al., 2002)

Rediscovered in: 2015 (photograph); 2019 (confirmation) (Flannery et al., 2026)

Distribution & Habitat

New Guinea

Biology & Ecology

Hypodigm

Media

References

Original scientific description:

Aplin, Kenneth Peter, Pasveer, Juliette M. and Boles, Walter E. (1999). Late Quaternary vertebrates from the Bird’s Head Peninsula, Irian Jaya, Indonesia, including descriptions of two previously unknown marsupial species. 6th Conference on Australasian vertebrate evolution, palaeontology and systematics, and extinction Records of the Western Australian Museum 57(suppl.): 351-387.

Other references:

Flannery, Timothy F., Koungoulos, Loukas G., Meijaard, Erik, Yohanita, Aksamina M., Muharmansyah, Arman, AlZaqie, Ichlas, Aplin, Kenneth P., Korain, Frederika, Mjam, Marneks and Helgen, Kristofer M. (2026). A new genus of hemibelideine possum (Marsupialia: Pseudocheiridae) from New Guinea and Australia, including a Lazarus taxon from the Vogelkop Peninsula. In: Contributions to the Mammalogy of New Guinea, ed. Tim F. Flannery and Kristofer M. Helgen. Records of the Australian Museum 78(1): 35-52. https://doi.org/10.3853/j.2201-4349.78.2026.3004

Jackson, Stephen M., and Thorington Jr., Richard W. (2012). Gliding Mammals: Taxonomy of Living and Extinct Species. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology, No. 638, vi + 117 pp.

Jackson, Stephen M., Travouillon, Kenny J., Beck, Robin, M. D., Archer, Michael, Hand, Suzanne J., Helgen, Kristofer M., Fitzgerald, Erich M. G. and Price, Gilbert J. (2024). An annotated checklist of Australasian fossil mammals. Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology 48(4): 548-746. https://doi.org/10.1080/03115518.2024.2434062

Long, John, Archer, Michael, Flannery, Timothy and Hand, Suzanne. (2002). Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea: One Hundred Million Years of Evolution. Sydney, N.S.W.: University of New South Wales Press. [incl. p.25]

Pasveer, J. M. (1998). Kria Cave: an 8000-year occupation sequence from the Bird’s Head of Irian Jaya. In Bartstra G-J, ed., Bird’s Head approaches: Irian Jaya studies—a programme for interdisciplinary research, pp. 67-89. A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam.

Pasveer, J. M. (2004). The Djief Hunters: 26,000 Years of Rainforest Exploitation on the Bird’s Head of Papua, Indonesia. Modern Quaternary Research in Southeast Asia, vol 17. Leiden, Netherlands: Balkema.

Pasveer, J. M., Clarke, S. J. and Miller, G. H. (2002). Late Pleistocene occupation of inland rainforest, Bird’s Head, Papua. Archaeology in Oceania 37(2): 92-95. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1834-4453.2002.tb00510.x

Travouillon, Kenny J., Jackson, Stephen, Beck, Robin M. D., Louys, Julien, Cramb, Jonathan, Gillespie, Anna, Black, Karen, Hand, Suzanne, Archer, Michael, Kear, Benjamin, Hocknull, Scott, Phillips, Matthew, McDowell, Matthew, Fitzgerald, Erich M. G., Brewer, Phillipa and Price, Gilbert J. (2023). Checklist of the Fossil Mammal Species of Australia and New Guinea. Available from: https://www.australasianpalaeontologists.com/national-fossil-species-lists [Accessed 2 March 2025]

Travouillon, Kenny J., Jackson, Stephen, Beck, Robin M. D., Louys, Julien, Cramb, Jonathan, Gillespie, Anna, Black, Karen, Hand, Suzanne, Archer, Michael, Kear, Benjamin, Hocknull, Scott, Phillips, Matthew, McDowell, Matthew, Fitzgerald, Erich M. G., Brewer, Phillipa and Price, Gilbert J. (2024). Checklist of the Fossil Mammal Species of Australia and New Guinea. Available from: https://www.australasianpalaeontologists.com/national-fossil-species-lists [Accessed 24 November 2024]

Travouillon, Kenny J., Jackson, Stephen, Beck, Robin M. D., Louys, Julien, Cramb, Jonathan, Gillespie, Anna, Black, Karen, Hand, Suzanne, Archer, Michael, Kear, Benjamin, Hocknull, Scott, Phillips, Matthew, McDowell, Matthew, Fitzgerald, Erich M. G., Brewer, Phillipa and Price, Gilbert J. (2025). Checklist of the Fossil Mammal Species of Australia and New Guinea. Available from: https://www.australasianpalaeontologists.com/national-fossil-species-lists [Accessed 1 March 2025]

Turvey, Samuel T. (2009). Holocene mammal extinctions, pp. 41-61. In: Turvey, Samuel T. (ed.). Holocene Extinctions. Oxford, UK & New York, USA: Oxford University Press. xii + 352 pp.

Turvey, Samuel T. and Fritz, Susanne A. (2011). The ghosts of mammals past: biological and geographical patterns of global mammalian extinction across the Holocene. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 366(1577): 2564-2576. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2011.0020 [Supplementary Information]

https://extinctanimals.proboards.com/thread/6269/petauroides-ayamaruensis

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