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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 ]
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.
Microbiotheriidae is a family of australidelphian marsupials represented by only one extant species, the monito del monte, and a number of extinct species known from fossils in South America, Western Antarctica, and northeastern Australia.
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 ]
The family Caenolestidae within the order Paucituberculata 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.
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 .
Microbiotheria is an australidelphian marsupial order that encompasses two families, Microbiotheriidae and Woodburnodontidae, [1] and is represented by only one extant species, the monito del monte, and a number of extinct species known from fossils in South America, Western Antarctica, and northeastern Australia.
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 ...