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PHALANGER

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Originally appearing in Volume V21, Page 344 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PHALANGER , a See also:

book-name applied to the more typical representatives of the See also:group of diprotodont marsupial mammals, including the cuscuses of the See also:Moluccas and See also:Celebes, and the so-called opossums of See also:Australia, and thus collectively the whole See also:family Phalangeridae. (See See also:MARSUPIALIA.) Phalangers generally are small or See also:medium-sized woolly-coated marsupials, with See also:long, powerful, and often prehensile tails, large claws, and opposable nailless first See also:hind toes. They seem in the See also:day to be dull and sleepy, but are alert at See also:night. They live mostly upon fruits, leaves and blossoms, although a few feed habitually upon See also:insects, and all relish, in confinement, an occasional See also:bird or other small See also:animal. Several possess flying-membranes stretched between their fore and hind limbs, by the help of which they can make long and sustained leaps through the See also:air, like flying-squirrels; but the See also:possession of these flying-membranes does not seem to be any indication of See also:special See also:affinity, the characters of the See also:skull and See also:teeth sharply dividing the flying forms and uniting them with other See also:species of the non-flying See also:groups. The skull (see fig. r) is, as a See also:rule, broad and flattened, with the posterior See also:part swollen out laterally owing to the numerous air-cells situated in the substance of the squamosal .bones. The dental See also:formula is very variable, especially as regards the premolars, of which some at least in each genus are reduced to functionless rudiments, and may even vary in number on the two sides of the See also:jaw of the same individual. The incisors are always , the See also:lower one very large and inclined forwards, and the canines normally f, cf which the inferior is always See also:minute, and in one genus generally absent. The molars number either f or -.

End of Article: PHALANGER

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