Marsupials Sentence Examples

Alone among marsupials bandicoots have no clavicles.

Very generally the tail has distinctly the appearance of an appendage, but in some of the lower mammals, such as the thylacine among marsupials, and the aard-vark or ant-bear among the edentates, it is much thickened at the root, and passes insensibly into the body, after the fashion common among reptiles.

The ' large ' Australian marsupials are no where near the size of extinct species.

Owing to the antiquity of both placentals and marsupials, the arboreal character of the feet of the modern forms of the latter is of little importance.

In addition to this replacement of a single pair of functional teeth in each jaw, it has been discovered that marsupials possess rudimentary tooth-germs which never cut the gum.

Wallace, this author is of opinion that marsupials did not effect an entrance into Australia till about the middle of the Tertiary period, their ancestors being probably opossums of the American type.

The short period of this evolution is at least one factor in the primitive grade of even the most specialized members of the group. In the advance of their molar teeth from a tritubercular to a grinding type, the author traces a curious parallelism between marsupials and placentals.

Taking opossums to have been the ancestors of the group, the author considers that the present writer may be right in his view that marsupials entered Australia from Asia by way of New Guinea.

Existing marsupials may be divided into three main divisions or sub-orders, of which the first, or Polyprotodontia, is common to America and Australasia; the second, or Paucituberculata, is exclusively South American; while the third, or Diprotodonts, is as solely Australasian inclusive of a few in the eastern Austro-Malayan islands.

The young (which, as in other marsupials, leave the uterus in an extremely small and imperfect condition) are placed in the pouch as soon as they are born; and to this they resort temporarily for shelter for some time after they are able to run, jump and feed upon the herbage which forms the nourishment of the parent.

Here may be noticed three genera of large extinct marsupials from the Pleistocene of Australia whose affinities appear to ally them to the wombat-group on the one hand and to the phalangers on the other.

The occurrence in the Santa Cruz beds of Patagonia of fossil marsupials allied to the living Caenolestes has been mentioned above.

The same deposits have yielded remains of small mammals whose dentition approximates more nearly to that of either polyprotodont marsupials or insectivores; and these may be conveniently noticed here without prejudice to their true affinities.

It will be observed from the figures of the lower jaws, which are in most cases the only parts known, that in many instances the number of cheek-teeth exceeds that found in modern marsupials except Myrmecobius.

As regards the affinities of the creatures to which these jaws belonged, Professor Osborn has referred the Triconodontidae and Amphitheriidae, together with the Curtodontidae (as represented by the English Purbeck Curtodon), to a primitive group of marsupials, while he has assigned the Amblotheriidae and Stylacodontidae to an ancestral assemblage of Insectivora.

The discovery as fossil, in South America, of primitive or ancestral forms of marsupials has given it much support.

The opossums of America are marsupials, though not showing anomalies as great as kangaroos and bandicoots (in their feet), and Myrmecobius (in the number of teeth).

Australia is inhabited by at least if o different species of marsupials, which is about two-thirds of the known species; these have been arranged in five tribes, according to the food they eat, viz., the grass-eaters (kangaroos), the root-eaters (wombats), the insect-eaters (bandicoots), the flesh-eaters (native cats and rats), and the fruit-eaters (phalangers).

Ameghino, they were regarded as nearly related to the marsupials.

As a whole, Australia is rich in parrots, of which it has several very peculiar forms, but Picarians in old-fashioned parlance, of all sorts - certain kingfishers excepted - are few in number, and the pigeons are also comparatively scarce, no doubt because of the many arboreal predaceous marsupials.

Monotremes (2 species) and marsupials (4 families and 44 species) predominate, but are not abundant.

Non-committal as regards evolution, he vastly broadened the field of vertebrate palaeontology by his descriptions of the extinct fauna of England, of South America (including especially the great edentates revealed by the voyage of the " Beagle "), of Australia (the ancient and modern marsupials) and of New Zealand (the great struthious birds).

In the marsupials it is more evident, and its excitation by electric currents evokes movements in the musculature of the crossed side of the body.

In other instances, notably in the lemurs, but also in certain carnivora, rodents and marsupials, they occupy a position on the fore-arm near the wrist, in connexion with glands, and receive sensory powers from the radial nerve.

With the exception of the marsupials, a set of deciduous, or milk, teeth is developed in FIG.

In mammals with two sets of teeth the number of those of the permanent series preceded by milk-teeth varies greatly, being sometimes, as in marsupials and some rodents, as few as one on each side of each jaw, and in other cases including the larger portion of the series.

With the marsupials the case is, however, somewhat different; the whole number not being limited to 44, owing largely to the fact that the number of upper incisors may exceed three pairs, reaching indeed in some instances to as many as five.

On the assumption that these functional teeth correspond to the milk-series of placentals, "marsupials in this respect agree exactly with modern elephants, in which the same peculiarity exists.

Others however (inclusive of Tritylodon and Microlestes, if they be really mammals), seem nearer to the Monotremata; and the question has yet to be decided whether placentals and marsupials on the one hand, and monotremes on the other are not independently derived from reptilian ancestors.

The Insectivora are certainly the lowest group of existing placental mammals, and exhibit many signs of affinity with marsupials; they may even be a more generalized group than the latter.

As regards the number and form of their permanent teeth, at any rate, creodonts present such a marked similarity to carnivorous marsupials, that it is difficult to believe the two groups are not allied, although the nature of the relationship is not yet understood, and the minute internal structure of the teeth is unlike that of marsupials and similar to that of modern Carnivora.

Be this as it may, there can be little doubt that the creodonts are related to the Insectivora, which, as stated above, show decided signs of kinship with the marsupials.

The marsupials also attain their maximum development in Australia (" Notogaea " of the distributionists), extending, however, as far west as Celebes and the Moluccas, although in these islands they form an insignificant minority among an extensive placental fauna, being represented only by the cuscuses (Phalanger), a group unknown in either Papua or Australia.

Very different, on the other hand, is the condition of things in Australia and Papua, where marsupials (and monotremes) are the dominant forms of mammalian life, the placentals being represented (apart from bats, which are mainly of an Asiatic type) only by a number of more or less aberrant rodents belonging to the mouse-tribe, and in Australia by the dingo, or native dog, and in New Guinea by a wild pig.

The remaining marsupials (namely the families Didelphyidae and Epanorthidae) are American, and mainly South and Central American at the present day; although during the early part of the Tertiary period representatives of the first-named family ranged all over the northern hemisphere.

The latest date for the existence of this connexion is given by the absence from Tasmania of the dingo, the lyre-bird and the giant marsupials; so that the isolation of Tasmania was earlier than the arrival of those animals in south-eastern Australia.

The Marsupials include the Macro pus or kangaroo; the opossums, Phalangista vulpina and P. Cookii; the opossum-mouse, Dromicia nana; Perameles or bandicoot; Hypsiprymnus or kangaroo rat; Phascolomys or wombat; while of Monotremata there are the Echidna or porcupine ant-eater and the duck-billed platypus.

Rabbits, after their introduction, quickly supplanted other small marsupials and rodents, competing with them as favorites among hunters.

The same dramatic changes brought about the extinction of the giant marsupials at the end of this period.

Then it applied a defensive device common to most arboreal marsupials.

Marsupials and placental mammals marsupials and placental mammals Marsupials and placental mammals give birth to live young.

Very little is known about reproductive physiology in the majority of marsupials.

In Australia and Papua the name flying-squirrel is applied to such marsupials as are provided with parachutes; animals which naturalists prefer to designate flying-phalangers (see MARSUPIALIA).

There is much to be urged in favour of either view; and in adopting the former alternative, it must be borne in mind that the difference between monotremes and marsupials is vastly greater than that which separates the latter from placentals.

As regards geographical distribution, existing marsupials, with the exception of two families, Didelphyidae and Epanorthidae, are mainly limited to the Australian region, forming the chief mammalian fauna of Australia, New Guinea, and some of the adjacent islands.

Dollo's view that marsupials were originally arboreal, that, on account of their foot-structure, they could not have been the ancestors of placentals, and that they themselves are degenerate placentals, Mr Bensley contrasts this with Huxley's scheme of mammalian evolution.

According to the latter, the early monotremes which became specialized into modern monotremes, gave rise to the ancestors of the modern marsupials; while the modern placentals are likewise an offshoot from the ancestral marsupial stcck.

Further, it is considered that too much weight has been assigned to the characters distinguishing monotremes from other mammals, foetal marsupials showing a monotreme type of coracoid, while it is probable that in the long run it will be found impossible to maintain the essential dissimilarity between the milk-glands of monotremes and other mammals.

Another view is to regard both marsupials and placentals as derivates from implacental ancestors more or less nearly related to the creodont carnivora, or possibly as independently descended from anomodont reptiles (see Creodonta).

The genus Phascologale comprises a number of small marsupials, none exceeding a rat in size, differing from the dasyures in possessing an additional premolar - the dentition being i.

Extinct Marsupials Reference has been made to the Australasian Pleistocene genera Phascolonus, Diprotodon, Nototherium and Thylacoleo, whose affinities are with the wombats and phalangers.

The alleged occurrence in the same beds of marsupials allied to the thylacine is based on remains now more generally regarded as referable to the creodont carnivores (see Creodonta).

The geographical limits of the marsupials are very interesting.

Other terrestrial marsupials are the wombat (Phascolomys), a large, clumsy, burrowing animal, not unlike a pig, which attains a weight of from 60 to 100 lb; the bandicoot (Perameles), a rat-like creature whose depredations annoy the agriculturist; the native cat (Dasyurus), noted robber of the poultry yard; the Tasmanian wolf (Thylacinus), which preys on large game; and the recently discovered Notoryctes, a small animal which burrows like a mole in the desert of the interior.

To the evidence advanced by a great number of authors comes the clinching testimony of the existence of a number of varieties of Australian marsupials in Patagonia, as originally discovered by Ameghino and more exactly described by members of the Princeton Patagonian expedition staff; while the fossil shells of the Eocene of Patagonia as analysed by Ortmann give evidence of the existence of a continuous shoreline, or at least of shallow-water areas, between Australia, New Zealand and South America.

Similarly imbricated epidermic productions form the covering of the undersurface of the tail of the African flying rodents of the family Anomaluridae; and flat scutes, with the edges in apposition, and not overlaid, clothe both surfaces of the tail of the beaver, rats and certain other members of the rodent order, and also of some insectivora and marsupials.

These three classes are the Monotremata (or Prototheria), the Marsupialia (Didelphia, or Metatheria), and the Placentalia (Monodelphia, or Eutheria); the distinctive characters of each being given in separate articles (see Mono Tremata, Marsupialia and Monodelphia.) The existing monotremes and marsupials are each represented only by a single order; but the placentals are divided into the following ordinal and subordinal groups, those which are extinct being marked with an asterisk (*) i.

In elevating the marsupials to the rank of a sub-class the name Metatheria has been suggested as the title for the higher grade, with Marsupialia as the designation for the single order by which they are now represented.

Marsupials may be defined as viviparous (that is non-egglaying) mammals, in which the young are born in an imperfect condition, and almost immediately attached to the teats of the mammary glands; the latter being generally enclosed in a pouch, and the front edge of the pelvis being always furnished with epipubic or "marsupial" bones.

The pouch from which the marsupials take their name is supported by the two epipubic bones, but does not correspond to the temporary breeding-pouch of the monotremes.

It may be added that there are some marsupials, such as the wombat, koala, marsupial ant-eater and the dasyures, FIG.

It is urged that the imperfect placenta of the bandicoots instead of being vestigial, may be an instance of parallelism, and that in marsupials generally the allantois failed to form a placental connexion.

Finally, there is the hypothesis that marsupials are the descendants of placentals, in which case, as was suggested by its discoverer, the placenta of the bandicoots would be a true vestigial structure.

The marsupials constitute two-thirds of all the Australian species of mammals.

Their abdominal bones are like those of the marsupials; and they are furnished with pouches for their young, but have no teats, the milk being distilled into their pouches from the mammary glands.

Huxley in 1880 briefly suggested the arboreal origin, or primordial treehabitat of all the marsupials, a suggestion abundantly confirmed by the detailed studies of Dollo and of Bensley, according to which we may imagine the marsupials to have passed through (r) a former terrestrial phase, followed by (2) a primary arboreal phase - illustrated in the tree phalangers - followed by (3) a secondary terrestrial phase - illustrated in the kangaroos and wallabies - followed by (4) a secondary arboreal phase - illustrated in the tree kangaroos.

No marsupials occur.

Other distinctive features by which marsupials are separated from monodelphians or placentals will be found in the article last mentioned.

Although intimately connected with the cuscuses and phalangers by means of the musk-kangaroo, the kangaroos and wallabies, together with the rat-kangaroos, are easily distinguishable from other diprotodont marsupials by their general conformation, and by peculiarities in the structure of their limbs, teeth and other organs.

The milk-dentition, as in other marsupials, is confined to a single tooth on each side of each jaw, the other molars and incisors being never changed.

With regard to the evolution of marsupials and placentals, it has been pointed out that the majority of modern marsupials exhibit in the structure of their feet traces of the former opposability of the thumb and great toe to the other digits; and it has accordingly been argued that all marsupials are descended from arboreal ancestors.