Latest Marsupial Stories
Tooth enamel reveals diet, habitats of extinct marsupials in southeastern Queensland The teeth of a kangaroo and other extinct marsupials reveal that southeastern Queensland 2.5-5-million-years ago was a mosaic of tropical forests, wetlands and grasslands and much less arid than previously thought. The chemical analysis of tooth enamel that suggests this diverse prehistoric habitat is published June 12 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Shaena Montanari from the American Museum of...
When, how and why modern humans first stood up and walked on two legs is considered to be one of the greatest missing links in our evolutionary history. Scientists have gone to the far ends of the earth – and the wonderful creatures in it - to look for answers to why we walk the way we walk. In the latest such search, researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg (South Africa) have taken a closer look at bipedal kangaroos and wallabies and how they move compared...
BioMed Central Boys are right-handed, girls are left...Well at least this is true for sugar gliders (Petaurus breviceps) and grey short-tailed opossums (Monodelphis domestica), finds an article in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, and shows that handedness in marsupials is dependent on gender. This preference of one hand over another has developed despite the absence of a corpus collosum, the part of the brain which in placental mammals allows one half of the...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A new study led by researchers at the University of Adelaide concludes that humans alone may have been responsible for the extinction of Australia's iconic native predator, the Tasmanian Tiger (thylacine). The study, published in a recent issue of the Journal of Animal Ecology, used a new population modeling approach to contradict the widespread belief that disease must have been a factor in the thylacine's extinction. The Tasmanian...
Michael Harper for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online There’s a popular cartoon geared towards adults which tells the story of a hapless young man who accidentally stumbles into a cryogenic capsule just moments before the turn of the century. The capsule just so happens to be set for 1,000 years, long enough for a couple of alien and robot uprisings and for the entire world our character knew to be virtually wiped away. The rest of the show is centered on how this 20th century guy...
While the Tasmanian tiger was being driven to extinction in the early 20th century by territorial interlopers and government bounties, the population of the bizarre marsupial also suffered from an extreme lack of genetic diversity, according to a study published this week in PLoS ONE. The Tasmanian tiger, also known as the thylacine, was as large as a medium-sized dog that roamed across both Australia and Tasmania and had no natural predators. It was one of only two marsupials, along...
A remarkable 94-million-year-old fossil found in South America is shedding new light on the ancient history of mammals. The specimen, dubbed Cronopio dentiacutus, is one of the very few mammal fossils to come out of South America from the era when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. The mouse-sized creature had a long snout, dagger-like canines and a powerful set of muscles it used to chew its insect food. The mammal is a dryolestoid, an extinct group of animals distantly related to...
A well-preserved fossil discovered in China provides new evidence that the split between placental mammals and marsupials may have occurred 35 million years earlier than previously believed, according to a new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The scientists, led by Carnegie Museum of Natural History paleontologist Zhe-Xi Luo, said the discovery fills an important gap in the fossil record, and helps to calibrate modern, DNA-based methods of dating evolution. The...
While sequencing the DNA of a member of the kangaroo family for the first time, an international team of researchers believe they have identified the gene responsible for the creature's hop, Judith Burns of BBC News reported on Friday. The project, which is detailed in the latest issue of the journal Genome Biology, centers around the tammar wallaby (Macropus eugenii), a smaller species of kangaroo located on islands off the south and west coasts of Australia. According to Burns, this...
Scientists said Wednesday that the fossil of a mega-wombat has been unearthed in northern Australia. The herbivorous diprotodon was the largest marsupial to ever roam the earth and lived between two million and 50,000 years ago. The diprotodon skeleton was dug up in remote Queensland last week and scientists believe it could shed valuable light on the species' demise. The ancient marsupial became extinct around the same time that indigenous tribes first appeared and debate has raged about the...
Latest Marsupial Reference Libraries
The eastern grey kangaroo (Macropus giganteus), also known as the Forester kangaroo or the great grey kangaroo, is a marsupial that can be found in eastern and southern areas of Australia. It prefers a habitat within woodlands, coastlines, inland scrublands, and mountainous forests. It is more common to see this species than the red kangaroo, although the red kangaroo is more well-known. The eastern grey kangaroo varies in size depending on the sex, with males typically growing larger than...
The red kangaroo (Macropus rufus) is a species within the Macropodidae family that can be found in Australia. Its range extends through central and western Australia, but it tends to avoid eastern, southern, and northern areas of Australia. It prefers a habitat within grasslands, scrublands, and deserts with a fair amount of tree vegetation, which is used for shade. The red kangaroo is the largest marsupial and the largest mammal in Australia. Males are typically larger than females,...
The common ringtail possum (Pseudocheirus peregrinus) is a marsupial that is native to Australia. Its range includes eastern and southwestern areas of Australia and Tasmania. It prefers a habitat within tropical or temperate regions in dense forests, showing a particular inclination for eucalyptus forests. This species is the sole member of its genus, Pseudocheirus, but it is thought to hold four subspecies. The common ringtail possum can reach an average body length between 11.8 and 13.7...
The honey possum (Tarsipes rostratus), also known as the tait or the noolbenger natively, is a marsupial that occurs in Australia. Its range is small and isolated to an area in the southwest portion of Western Australia. In this area, it prefers a habitat within woodlands and shrub lands. This possum is the sole member of its genus Tarsipes, and of its family, leading some experts to assert that it may deserve a distinct classification from its superfamily or higher. It is also thought to be...
The Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana) is the only marsupial that occurs north of Mexico in North America. It is commonly known as the North American opossum and as “tlacuache” in Mexico. It is often seen in or near human settlements, foraging through waste for food. Its range includes Central and North America, east of the Rockies, and from Costa Rica to southern areas of Ontario, Canada. It has been found farther north than Toronto and in northwestern Minnesota, and so it is...
