The bear cuscuses are the members of the genus Ailurops.

[1] The bear cuscuses are arboreal marsupials.

[1] The genus is distinct, though, and some authorities place it within its own subfamily, Ailuropinae.

[1] They are found only in Indonesia on Sulawesi and some smaller nearby islands that are biogeographically part of Wallacea, which from a faunal standpoint is intermediate between the Australian and Indomalayan realms.

It is hypothesized that the isolation of the bear cuscuses on the island of Sulawesi in the Miocene accounts for the animal's morphological divergence from the rest of the family Phalangeridae.