Buff-bellied fat-tailed mouse opossum
species of mammal
The buff-bellied fat-tailed mouse opossum (Thylamys venustus) is a species of opossum in the family Didelphidae. It is found in the transitional and humid forests of northern Argentina and southern Bolivia. Its dorsal fur is cinnamon brown. Most of its ventral fur is gray-based, but its chest, throat, and the thoracic midline (the midline of the thorax, which ranges from the throat to the top of the abdomen) are not gray-based. The postorbital ridges are absent in the young and weakly developed in adults.
Initially classed as a Marmosa elegans subspecies, it was subsequently raised to species status in 1933. There are four synonyms: Marmosa elegans venusta (Thomas, 1902, Cochabamba), Marmosa elegans cinderella (Thomas, 1902, Tucumán Province), Marmosa elegans sponsoria (Thomas, 1921, Jujuy Province) and Marmosa janetta (Thomas, 1926, Tarija Department) with cinderella and sponsoria actually being one taxon and a subspecies of venustus; janetta is the largest of all and has cream-white ventral fur with plumbeous bases.
Its conservation status is not exactly known; it occurs in an area currently being developed, and while its range overlaps several protected areas, it is uncertain if it occurs in any of them.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Buff-bellied fat-tailed mouse opossum” is species of mammal. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Buff-bellied, fat-tailed and mouse, not as a finished interpretation.
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The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 29, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q194995. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1933, 1902, 1921 and 1926.
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This entry incorporates text from “Buff-bellied fat-tailed mouse opossum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.