AnimalFactCentral

Marsupials live naturally in the Americas and Australasia, with their greatest modern diversity in Australia and nearby New Guinea. They occupy deserts, grasslands, shrublands, eucalyptus forests, tropical rainforests, temperate rainforests, alpine and subalpine environments, wetlands, river corridors, coastal scrub, farmland edges, suburbs, and underground sandy habitats. There is no single “marsupial habitat.” Kangaroos may cross … Read more

Marsupials move in far more ways than the famous kangaroo hop. Large kangaroos use powerful bipedal hopping at travel speeds and a very different five-part gait at slow speeds. Tree-kangaroos climb with broad gripping feet and flexible ankles. Sugar gliders travel between trees on a membrane of skin. Wombats excavate burrows with powerful forelimbs. Marsupial … Read more

Marsupials eat an enormous range of foods. Some, such as kangaroos and wombats, are mainly herbivores. Koalas are highly specialized leaf eaters. Potoroos and bettongs can rely heavily on fungi. Numbats specialize on termites. Bandicoots and bilbies often combine insects and plant foods. Quolls are predators, Tasmanian devils hunt and scavenge, and many opossums are … Read more

So many marsupials are found in Australia because the continent became a major center of marsupial diversification after ancestral marsupial lineages reached the southern landmasses and Australia became increasingly isolated. That history involved dispersal through regions that were once connected very differently from today, especially South America, Antarctica, and Australia, followed by tens of millions … Read more

Marsupial babies begin life outside the uterus at a much earlier developmental stage than the newborns of many placental mammals. That does not mean they are unhealthy or pathologically premature. Early birth is part of a normal marsupial reproductive strategy in which pregnancy is followed by an unusually important period of milk-supported development. The newborn … Read more

A marsupial pouch is not a miniature womb, and not every marsupial has the deep kangaroo-style pocket people picture. The pouch, or marsupium, is a skin structure around the mammary area that helps protect nursing young after birth. Across living marsupials, it ranges from a deep permanent enclosure to shallow skin folds, seasonally developed tissue, … Read more

Opossums and possums are both marsupials, but they are not simply two spellings for the same worldwide animal group. In zoological usage, opossum usually refers to American marsupials in the order Didelphimorphia, while possum usually refers to several Australasian marsupials, especially groups within the order Diprotodontia. The familiar Virginia opossum in the United States and … Read more

There are far more types of marsupials than kangaroos, koalas, and wombats. Living Marsupialia includes American opossums, shrew opossums, the South American monito del monte, Tasmanian devils and quolls, bandicoots and bilbies, marsupial moles, possums, gliders, kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, wombats, and other relatives. These animals differ enormously in body shape, diet, habitat, and movement, yet … Read more

What makes an animal a marsupial is not simply the presence of a pouch. Marsupials are a living lineage of mammals defined by their evolutionary ancestry and a distinctive combination of reproductive and developmental traits. They give birth to live young, form functional placental tissues during pregnancy, and typically shift a large share of development … Read more