Ailurops

Ailurops is a genus of arboreal marsupials in the family Phalangeridae, known as the bear cuscuses. Its members live only in Indonesia, on Sulawesi and some smaller nearby islands that belong biogeographically to Wallacea, a region whose fauna is intermediate between the Australian and Indomalayan realms. Almost nothing is known about the status and ecology of these animals. Scientists disagree on how many species the genus holds: some assign every population to Ailurops ursinus, while others treat the Talaud bear cuscus, Ailurops melanotis, as its own species. The genus is clearly distinct from the rest of the family, and some authorities place it in its own subfamily, Ailuropinae. One hypothesis holds that isolation on Sulawesi during the Miocene explains how the bear cuscuses diverged in form from other phalangerids.