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The evolution of reproduction in marsupials, and speculation about the ancestral state of mammalian reproduction, have engaged discussion since the end of the 19th century. Both sexes possess a cloaca , [ 17 ] although modified by connecting to a urogenital sac and having a separate anal region in most species. [ 18 ]
Paucituberculata / ˌ p ɔː s ɪ tj uː ˌ b ɜːr k j uː ˈ l eɪ t ə / is an order of South American marsupials.Although currently represented only by the seven living species of shrew opossums, this order was formerly much more diverse, with more than 60 extinct species named from the fossil record, particularly from the late Oligocene to early Miocene epochs.
The Macropodidae are an extant family of marsupial with the distinction of the ability to move bipedally on the hind legs, sometimes by jumping, as well as quadrupedally. They are herbivores , but some fossil genera like Ekaltadeta are hypothesised to have been carnivores . [ 1 ]
Modern marsupials are now understood to be an originally South American lineage that later reached Australia and diversified there in a massive adaptive radiation. [1] [2] Molecular data, including analysis of retrotransposon insertion sites in the nuclear DNA of a variety of marsupials, and the fossil evidence indicate that Ameridelphia might best be understood as an evolutionary grade.
The family Caenolestidae contains the seven surviving species of shrew opossum: small, shrew-like marsupials that are confined to the Andes mountains of South America. [1] The order is thought to have diverged from the ancestral marsupial line very early.
The Macropodiformes / m æ k r oʊ ˈ p ɒ d ɪ f ɔːr m iː z /, also known as macropods, are one of the three suborders of the large marsupial order Diprotodontia. They may in fact be nested within one of the suborders, Phalangeriformes. [2] Kangaroos, wallabies and allies, bettongs, potoroos and rat kangaroos are all members of this suborder.
All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a pouch . Well-known marsupials include kangaroos , wallabies , koalas , opossums , wombats , Tasmanian devils , and the extinct thylacine .
Thylacoleo ("pouch lion") is an extinct genus of carnivorous marsupials that lived in Australia from the late Pliocene to the Late Pleistocene (until around 40,000 years ago), often known as marsupial lions. They were the largest and last members of the family Thylacoleonidae, occupying the position of apex predator within Australian ecosystems.