Pygmy hippopotamus Conservation Union estimates that fewer than 3,000 pygmy hippos remain in the wild. Pygmy hippos are primarily threatened by loss of habitat, as forests are logged and converted to farm land, and are also vulnerable to poaching, hunting for bushmeat, natural predators, and war. Pygmy hippos are among the species illegally hunted for food in Liberia. Nomenclature of the pygmy hippopotamus reflects that of the hippopotamus. The plural form is pygmy hippopotami ("hippopotamuses" is also accepted as a plural form by the OED, or "pygmy hippos" for short). A male pygmy hippopotamus is known as a "bull", a female as
Eastern pygmy possum (Krefft, 1863) (the mainland Australian subspecies). Vernacular names that have been used for this species include dwarf phalanger, minute phalanger, dwarf cuscus, pigmy phalanger, Bell's "Dromicia", opossum mouse, dusky "Dromicia", pygmy opossum, thick-tailed "Dromicia", mouse-like phalanger, common dormouse-phalanger, dormouse phalanger, common dormouse-opossum, dormouse possum, pigmy opossum, pigmy possum and eastern pigmy possum. A standard name finally arose via a committee of the Australian Mammal Society. Bones of this species are often recorded as fossils or sub-fossils from late Pleistocene and Holocene cave deposits in south-eastern Australia. It is incorporated into the fossil record because owls and/or quolls that have preyed