Virginia Opossum

Didelphis virginiana Kerr 1792

2010 Bill Stagnaro cc-by-sa-3.0

Didelphis virginiana (Virginia Opossum) is a species of mammals in the family Didelphidae. They are native to The Nearctic and The Neotropics. They are solitary, nocturnal carnivores. Individuals are known to live for 60 months and can grow to 195.2 mm. Reproduction is viviparous. They have parental care (female provides care). They rely on arboreal (locomotion) to move around.

URI: https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q737742
Definition: one of the eight terrestrial ecozones constituting the Earth's land surface
Attribution: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ecozone_Nearctic.svg

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URI: https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q217151
Definition: one of the eight terrestrial ecozones constituting the Earth's land surface
Attribution: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ecozone_Neotropic.svg

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URI: http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q81875
Definition: organism that eats mostly or exclusively animal tissue

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URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/solitary
Definition: Solitary animals are those that spend a majority of their lives without others of their species, with possible exceptions for mating and raising their young. Antonyms for a solitary animal include a social animal or a colonial animal.
Attribution: https://www.definitions.net/definition/solitary+animal

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URI: http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q309179
Definition: animal behavior characterized by activity during the night and sleeping during the day

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URI: http://www.marinespecies.org/traits/Viviparous
Definition: 1) Producing live offspring from within the body of the parent (Lincoln et al., 1998). 2) Development of an embryo within the body of the parent, in part, resources passing directly from parent to embryo (Barnes et al., 2006).
Attribution: Lincoln, R., Boxshall, G. & Clark, P., 1998. A dictionary of ecology, evolution and systematics (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University of Press. Barnes R.S.K., Calow P., Olive P.J.W., Golding, D.W, and Spicer, J.I. 2006. The invertebrates: a new synthesis, Oxford: Blackwell Science Ltd. http://www.marinespecies.org/traits/wiki/Traits:Viviparous

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URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/parentalCareFemale
Definition: the female feeds and nurtures offspring
Attribution: Richard M. Sibly, Christopher C. Witt, Natalie A. Wright, Chris Venditti, Walter Jetz, and James H. Brown. 2012. Energetics, lifestyle, and reproduction in birds. PNAS 109(27):10937-10941, doi:10.1073/pnas.1206512109

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URI: http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/NBO_0000364
Definition: Behavior related to the locomotion of animals in trees.

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EOL has data for 66 attributes, including:

age at maturity
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/AgeAtMaturity
- Definition: Age at the first successful reproduction.
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186 days
body shape
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/BodyShape
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bilaterally symmetric
- URI: http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/PATO_0001324
- Definition: being symmetric about a plane running from frontal end to caudal end (head to tail), and having nearly identical right and left halves
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diet breadth
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/DietBreadth
- Definition: Number of dietary categories eaten by an organism.
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4
diet includes
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/Diet
- Definition: Information about the items eaten by this organism.
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fruit
- URI: http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/PO_0009001
- Definition: A multi-tissue plant structure (PO:0025496) that develops from a gynoecium (PO:0009062) and may have as parts one or more seeds (PO:0009010)
- Comment: Ontology Description: http://www.plantontology.org/ Ontology Source: http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/po.owl
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dispersal age
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/DispersalAge
- Definition: Age at which young permanently leave the parent, parental group, social group or any associated territories.
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107.5 days
first appearance
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/FossilFirst
- Definition: The first appearance of this taxon in the fossil record.
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2.588 million years ago
geographic range (size of area)
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/GeographicRangeArea
- Definition: The total extent of the geographic range of an organism.
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5696037.14 km^2
habitat breadth
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/HabitatBreadth
- Definition: Number of habitat layers used by an organism
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2
home range
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/HomeRange
- Definition: Size of the area within which everyday activities of individuals or groups (of any type) are typically restricted.
- Attribution: Kate E. Jones, Jon Bielby, Marcel Cardillo, Susanne A. Fritz, Justin O'Dell, C. David L. Orme, Kamran Safi, Wes Sechrest, Elizabeth H. Boakes, Chris Carbone, Christina Connolly, Michael J. Cutts, Janine K. Foster, Richard Grenyer, Michael Habib, Christopher A. Plaster, Samantha A. Price, Elizabeth A. Rigby, Janna Rist, Amber Teacher, Olaf R. P. Bininda-Emonds, John L. Gittleman, Georgina M. Mace, and Andy Purvis. 2009. PanTHERIA: a species-level database of life history, ecology, and geography of extant and recently extinct mammals. Ecology 90:2648. http://esapubs.org/archive/ecol/E090/184/
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0.51 km^2
inter-birth interval
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/InterBirthInterval
- Definition: The length of time between successive births of a female.
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122 days
litters per year
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/LittersPerYear
- Definition: Number of litters per female per year
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2 /year
mating system
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/MatingSystem
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polygynous
- URI: http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/ECOCORE_00000065
- Definition: One male has an exclusive mating relationship with two or more females
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Known occurrences, collected specimens and observations of Virginia Opossum. View this species on GBIF

2010 Bill Stagnaro cc-by-sa-3.0

Virginia Opossum includes 4 children: