Quaqua marsupial5/5/2023 ![]() Family Acrobatidae: feathertail glider and feather-tailed possum.Suborder Phalangeriformes – see list of phalangeriformes.Family † Thylacoleonidae: marsupial lions.Family † Palorchestidae: marsupial tapirs.Family † Diprotodontidae: giant wombats.Order Diprotodontia (136 species) – see list of diprotodonts.Family Peramelidae: bandicoots and allies.Family †Chaeropodidae: pig-footed bandicoots.Family Dasyuridae: antechinuses, quolls, dunnarts, Tasmanian devil, and relatives.Order Dasyuromorphia (73 species) – see list of dasyuromorphs.Order † Yalkaparidontia ( incertae sedis).Family Microbiotheriidae: monitos del monte.Order Microbiotheria (one extant species).Order Didelphimorphia (93 species) – see list of didelphimorphs.Marsupialia is further divided as follows: Kirsch and others accorded infraclass rank to Marsupialia. ![]() In 1816, French zoologist George Cuvier classified all marsupials under the order Marsupialia. However, James Rennie, author of The Natural History of Monkeys, Opossums and Lemurs (1838), pointed out that the placement of five different groups of mammals – monkeys, lemurs, tarsiers, aye-ayes and marsupials (with the exception of kangaroos, that were placed under the order Salientia) – under a single order (Pollicata) did not appear to have a strong justification. Marsupials are taxonomically identified as members of mammalian infraclass Marsupialia, first described as a family under the order Pollicata by German zoologist Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger in his 1811 work Prodromus Systematis Mammalium et Avium. It, in turn, is borrowed from the Latin marsupium and ultimately from the ancient Greek μάρσιππος mársippos, meaning "pouch". The word marsupial comes from marsupium, the technical term for the abdominal pouch. The remaining 30% are found in the Americas-primarily in South America, thirteen in Central America, and one species, the Virginia opossum, in North America, north of Mexico. Close to 70% of the 334 extant species occur on the Australian continent (the mainland, Tasmania, New Guinea and nearby islands). They give birth to relatively undeveloped young that often reside in a pouch located on their mothers' abdomen for a certain amount of time. Marsupials represent the clade originating from the last common ancestor of extant metatherians, the group containing all mammals more closely related to marsupials than to placentals. Living marsupials include opossums, Tasmanian devils, kangaroos, koalas, wombats, wallabies, and bandicoots among others, while many extinct species, such as the thylacine, are also known. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a pouch. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. ![]() Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. Present-day distribution of marsupials (blue excludes introduced presence in New Zealand) Clockwise from left: eastern grey kangaroo, Virginia opossum, long-nosed bandicoot, Monito del monte and Tasmanian devil representing the orders Diprotodontia, Didelphimorphia, Peramelemorphia, Microbiotheria and Dasyuromorphia respectively ![]()
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