Phalanger

Phalanger, small woolly-coated marsupials, with opposable great toes, which are destitute of a nail. They are, for the most part, vegetable feeders, though some are insectivorous, and in confinement any of them will readily devour small birds or other animals.

Entry from Everybody's Cyclopedia, 1912.

Pha*lan"ger (?), n. [Cf. F. phalanger. See Phalanx.] Zool.

Any marsupial belonging to Phalangista, Cuscus, Petaurus, and other genera of the family Phalangistidae. They are arboreal, and the species of Petaurus are furnished with lateral parachutes. See Flying phalanger, under Flying.

© Webster 1913.