Author Koh Lin ◦
There is something about our marupials that we love…
Marsupials are members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. One of the marsupials distinctive characteristics (and common to most of the species of marsupials), is that the young are carried in an external abdominal pouch. The pouch protects and nurtures the developing newborn offsprings (referred to as joeys), while they suckle on the mother’s mammary glands.
The word marsupial comes from marsupium, a pouch that protects eggs and offspring, or reproductive structures.
Marsupials are a diverse group of mammals belonging to the infraclass Marsupialia. Associated with Australia, marsupials are also found in Wallacea and the Americas. Wallacea is a biogeographical designation for a group of mainly Indonesian islands, that are separated by deep-water straits from the Asian and Australian continental shelves.
Australian marsupials are categorised into 3 groups, based on what they eat:
- Dasyurids — these are marsupials that eat meat: antechinus, dunnarts, numbats, quolls, tamanian devil and tasmanian tiger.
- Peramelemorphs — these are omnivorous marsupials: bilbies and bandicoots.
- Diprotodonts — these are the herbivorous marsupials: kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, possums and wombats.
There is a lovely small marsupial known as the Yellow-Footed Antechinus…
Check out some of our other information on marsupials:
