Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Marsupials have adapted to many habitats, reflected in the wide variety in their build. The largest living marsupial, the red kangaroo, grows up to 1.8 metres (5 ft 11 in) in height and 90 kilograms (200 lb) in weight, but extinct genera, such as Diprotodon, were significantly larger and heavier.
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.
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 latter subclass is divided into two infraclasses: pouched mammals (metatherians or marsupials), and placental mammals (eutherians, for which see List of placental mammals). Classification updated from Wilson and Reeder's "Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference" using the "Planet Mammifères" website. [1]
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 common spotted cuscus is about the size of a common house cat, weighing 1.5 to 6 kilograms (3.3 to 13.2 lb), body size about 35 to 65 centimetres (14 to 26 in) long, and a tail 32 to 60 centimetres (13 to 24 in) long. [5] It has a round head, small hidden ears, thick fur, and a prehensile tail to aid in climbing.
Analysis of retrotransposon insertion sites in the nuclear DNA of a variety of marsupials has shown that the South American monito del monte's lineage is the most basal of the superorder. [ 3 ] [ 4 ] The Australian australidelphians form a clade , for which the name Euaustralidelphia ("true Australidelphia") has been proposed (the branching ...
Figure 1:In mammals, the quadrate and articular bones are small and part of the middle ear; the lower jaw consists only of dentary bone.. While living mammal species can be identified by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands in the females, other features are required when classifying fossils, because mammary glands and other soft-tissue features are not visible in fossils.