Acrobates Desmarest 1818

Acrobates Desmarest, 1818 Ascobates Anon. in Knight, C. (1839) Penny Encyclopaedia. London. Vol. 14, No. 907, p. 454. [error for Acrobates]. Cercoptenus Gloger, C. W. L. (1841). Gemeinnütziges Hand- und Hilfsbuch der Naturgeschichte. Fur gebildete leser aller Stände. Bd I. Breslau: Schulz and Co. Type species. Didelphis pygmaeus Shaw, 1794 by original monotypy. Generic diagnosis. Differing externally from Distoechurus, the only other genus of acrobatid possums, in the possession of a patagial membrane between the elbow and ankle joints. Beck et al. (2022) list the following cranial and dental features as diagnosing Acrobates from Distoechurus: differing cranially in having a proportionally larger and more inflated neurocranium, a proportionally shorter and deeper rostrum, a vertically expanded sphenorbital fissure; a deep sulcus that houses the transverse canal vein extends laterally from the carotid canal and is floored ventrally by a strut of the alisphenoid vs by the posterior part of the pterygoid in Distoechurus, a narrower mandibular angular process; differing dentally in having P 3 relatively large and subequal in size to P 1 (reduced in Distoechurus), M 1-2 square rather than triangular, with the protocone positioned lingual to the paracone, and with more prominent buccal cingula, M 3 relatively large, more than one half the occlusal area of M 2 (Fig. 6).