Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Marsupials give birth at a very early stage of development; after birth, newborn marsupials crawl up the bodies of their mothers and attach themselves to a teat, which is located on the underside of the mother, either inside a pouch called the marsupium, or open to the environment. Mothers often lick their fur to leave a trail of scent for the ...
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.
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 .
Marsupial#Evolutionary history To a section : This is a redirect from a topic that does not have its own page to a section of a page on the subject. For redirects to embedded anchors on a page, use {{ R to anchor }} instead .
Being a marsupial and at the same time an aquatic animal, the water opossum has evolved a way to protect its young while swimming. A strong ring of muscle makes the pouch (which opens to the rear) watertight, so the young remain dry, even when the mother is totally immersed in water. [ 6 ]
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.