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Marsupials range in size from a few grams in the long-tailed planigale, [1] to several tonnes in the extinct Diprotodon. [2] The word marsupial comes from marsupium, the technical term for the abdominal pouch. It, in turn, is borrowed from the Latin marsupium and ultimately from the ancient Greek μάρσιππος mársippos, meaning "pouch".
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.
Diprotodon is a marsupial in the order Diprotodontia, [d] suborder Vombatiformes (wombats and koalas), and infraorder Vombatomorphia (wombats and allies). It is unclear how different groups of vombatiformes are related to each other because the most-completely known members—living or extinct—are exceptionally derived (highly specialised forms that are quite different from their last common ...
Diprotodontia (/ d aɪ ˌ p r oʊ t ə ˈ d ɒ n t i ə /, from Greek "two forward teeth") is the largest extant order of marsupials, with about 155 species, [2] including the kangaroos, wallabies, possums, koalas, wombats, and many others. Extinct diprotodonts include the hippopotamus-sized Diprotodon, and Thylacoleo, the so-called "marsupial ...
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.
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 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 ]
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.