marsupial

Examples of marsupial in the following topics:

• Living Mammals

  • The eutherians, or placental mammals, and the metatherians, or marsupials, together comprise the clade of therian mammals.
  • Marsupials are found primarily in Australia,although the opossum is found in North America.
  • Australian marsupials include the kangaroo, koala, bandicoot,Tasmanian devil, and several other species .
  • Marsupials differ from eutherians in that there is a less complex placental connection.
  • The Tasmanian devil is one of several marsupials native to Australia.

• Evolution of Mammals

  • Synapsids from this period include Dryolestes (more closely related to extant placentals and marsupials than to monotremes) as well as Ambondro (more closely related to monotremes).
  • Metatherians are the animals more closely related to the marsupials, while eutherians are those more closely related to the placentals.
  • One of the major differences between placental and nonplacental eutherians is that placentals lack epipubic bones, which are present in all other fossil and living mammals (marsupials and monotremes).
  • After the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs (birds are generally regarded as the surviving dinosaurs) and several other mammalian groups, placental and marsupial mammals diversified into many new forms and ecological niches throughout the Paleogene and Neogene, by the end of which all modern orders had appeared.

• Evidence of Evolution

  • The great diversification of marsupials in Australia and the absence of other mammals reflect Australia's long isolation.
  • The marsupials of Australia, the finches on the Galápagos, and many species on the Hawaiian Islands are all unique to their one point of origin, yet they display distant relationships to ancestral species on mainlands.

• The Pleistocene Extinction

  • A marsupial lion, a giant one-ton wombat, and several giant kangaroo species disappeared.

• Biogeography and the Distribution of Species

  • The (a) wallaby (Wallabia bicolor), a medium-sized member of the kangaroo family, is a pouched mammal, or marsupial.

• Characteristics of Mammals

  • While male monotremes and eutherians possess mammary glands, male marsupials do not.

• Biogeography

  • The (a) wallaby (Wallabia bicolor), a medium-sized member of the kangaroo family, is a pouched mammal, or marsupial.

• Tropical Wet Forest and Savannas

  • The northern Australian savannas also have many types of plants, animals, insects, and reptiles, including marsupials (kangaroos and wallabies), bats, and rodents.