Cercartetus

{{Short description|Genus of marsupials}}

{{Italic title}}

{{Automatic taxobox

| name = Cercartetus

| fossil_range=Late Pleistocene - Recent

| image = Cercartetus nanus.jpg

| image_caption = Cercartetus nanus

| taxon = Cercartetus

| authority = Gloger, 1841

| type_species = Phalangista nana

| type_species_authority = Desmarest, 1818

| subdivision_ranks = Species

| subdivision =

• C. caudatus
• C. concinnus
• C. lepidus
• C. nanus
• Foja pygmy possum Cercartetus sp.(undescribed)

}}

The genus Cercartetus is a group of very small possums known as pygmy possums. Four species comprise this genus, which together with the genus Burramys make up the marsupial family Burramyidae.{{MSW3 Groves|pages=44–45}}

It has occasionally been presumed that Cercaërtus was a misspelling or synonym of Cercartetus.{{cite journal | author = Simpson, G.G. | year = 1945 | title = The principles of classification and a classification of mammals.| journal = Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History | volume = 85 | pages = 1–350}}{{cite book | author = Grzimek, B. | year = 1975 | chapter = Pygmy Possums | title = Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia. Volume 10. Mammals I | publisher = Van Nostrand Reinhold | location = Melbourne | page = 114}} However, the name Cercaërtus is a junior synonym of Trichosurus and not of Cercartetus.{{cite journal |author1=Iredale, T. |author2=Troughton, E.L.G. | year = 1934 | title = A checklist of the mammals recorded from Australia | journal = Australian Museum Memoir | volume = 6| pages = 1–122 | doi = 10.3853/j.0067-1967.6.1934.516| doi-access = free }}{{cite journal | author = Wakefield, N.A. | year = 1963| title = The Australian pigmy possums | journal = The Victorian Naturalist | volume = 80 | pages = 99–116}}{{cite book | author = McKay, G.M. | year = 1988 | chapter = Burramyidae | title = Zoological Catalogue of Australia 5. Mammalia |editor1=J.L. Bannister |editor2=J.H. Calaby |editor3=L.J. Dawson |editor4=J.K. Ling |editor5=J.A. Mahoney |editor6=G.M. McKay |editor7=B.J. Richardson |editor8=W.D.L. Ride |editor9=D. W. Walton | pages = 98–102 | publisher = Australian Government Publishing Service | location = Canberra}}{{cite journal | author = Harris, J.M. | year = 2006 | title = The discovery and early natural history of the eastern pygmy-possum, Cercartetus nanus (Geoffroy and Desmarest, 1817) | journal = Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales | volume = 127 | pages = 107–124}}

Conservation International (CI) and the Indonesia Institute of Science (LIPI) reported on the possible discovery of a new species of Cercartetus pygmy possum upon visit to the Foja Mountains in June 2007.{{Cite web |url=http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gIZKPUU8Exc9IE9l5e9dMc70BxHw |title=Afp.google.com, Two new mammals found in Indonesian 'lost world': green group |access-date=2007-12-17 |archive-date=2007-06-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070609092458/http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gIZKPUU8Exc9IE9l5e9dMc70BxHw |url-status=dead }}