Morphology of the male genital system of the bushy-tailed opossum Glironiavenusta Thomas, 1912 (Didelphimorphia, Didelphidae)

The recent capture of a prepubertal male specimen of the rare opossum Gliro nia vcnusta provided the description of its genital system and a comparison with other Brazilian didelphids. Glironia is remarkable for the morphology of its short-clefted glans penis in which the urethral grooves terminate n ear the tips. This taxon shows two pairs of bulbo-urethral glands which are similar in number to those observed in species of the genus Caluromys and Gracilinanus, but different from other Didelphidae which have three pairs. The lack of segmentation of the prostate in Glironia may be due to the imma turity of the single specimen examined.