Morphology of the male genital system of the Bushy-Tailed opossum Glironia venusta Thomas, 1912 (Didelphimorphia, didelphidae)

Abstract

The recent capture of a prepubertal male specimen of the rare opossum Glironia venusta 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 near 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 immaturity of the single specimen examined.