It can spend more than a week in deep torpor, its heart almost stopped and its body cold to the touch, and wake up as though nothing had happened: it is one of the mammals that has best mastered that energy-saving technique.
From Eastern Pygmy Possum
It coils its prehensile tail into a spiral when it sleeps and uses it as a fifth hand while climbing among the banksia flowers it feeds on.
From Eastern Pygmy Possum
It lives almost entirely on nectar and pollen, one of the few non-flying mammals that works as a specialised pollinator.
From Honey Possum
It is the only land mammal in the world that lives exclusively on nectar and pollen: it does not even take insects as a supplement.
From Honey Possum
It has the longest sperm known of any mammal, at some 0.36 millimetres, longer than those of a blue whale.
From Honey Possum
All the males die after their first and only breeding season: the hormonal stress of the rut collapses their immune system within a few weeks, a phenomenon called semelparity that occurs in only a handful of mammals.
From Brush-tailed Phascogale
It can bristle the black crest of its tail until it looks like a bottle brush, probably to appear larger to a predator.
From Brush-tailed Phascogale

Ecosystems