Philander Brisson, 1762

Voss, Robert S., 2022, An Annotated Checklist Of Recent Opossums (Mammalia: Didelphidae), Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2022 (455), pp. 1-77 : 37

Genus Philander Brisson, 1762

TYPE SPECIES: Didelphis opossum Linnaeus, 1758 , by plenary action of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature ( ICZN, 1998).

SYNONYMS: Metachirops Matschie, 1916 ; Holothylax Cabrera, 1919 .

REMARKS: See Voss et al. (2018) for an emended generic description. Patton and da Silva (2008) summarized the protracted and now entirely irrelevant historical controversy concerning the application of this name, which was permanently settled by fiat (ICZN, 1998). Ten species are currently recognized, although problems of morphological diagnosis remain for some taxon pairs as discussed below.