Tarsipes, the honey possum of Australia, enters the LRT

Tiny
Tarsipes rostratus (“tarsier foot”, Gervais and Verreaux 1842, 8.5cm max snout-vent length) is the extant honey possum, a phylogenetically miniaturized marsupial subsisting on nectar, like a bee. Despite its tiny size, this is a terminal taxon, not basal to any others… at present.

The skull of Tarsipes
(Fig 2) is convergent with that of Dasypus, the much larger placental amadillo (Fig 5), which also reduces its premolars and molars to simple cones.

References
Beck RMD, Voss RS and Jansa SA 2022. Craniodental morphology and phylogeny of marsupials. Bullein of the American Museum of Natural History 457:350pp.
Bradshaw D and Bradshaw F 2012. The physiology of the honey possum, Tarsipes rostratus, a small marsupial with a suite of highly specialised characters: a review. J Comp Physiol 182(4):469-89. doi: 10.1007/s00360-011-0632-9.
Gervais P and Verreaux J 1842. L’Institut, l’ere Section, Sci., Math, Phys., Nat. :427 p.75

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