List of Marsupials
Marsupials are mammals known for their special way of giving birth and caring for their young. Unlike most mammals, marsupials have underdeveloped babies that are born and then carried and nurtured in a pouch called a marsupium on the mother’s belly. The pouch is meant to protect the babies while they drink their mother’s milk.
Bandicoot
Bandicoots are small to medium-sized marsupials that live in Australia and New Guinea. They have a compact body and V-shaped pointed snout. Bandicoots are active mainly at night and eat both plants and animals. They enjoy fruits and berries, insects, earthworms, and root vegetables as part of their diet.
Unlike marsupials like the kangaroo, the bandicoot’s pouch faces backward, which helps keep dirt out when they dig into the ground while searching for food.
The baby bandicoots stay in their mother’s pouch for about 50-60 days. After that, they have to fend for themselves in the wild.
Bettong
Sometimes known as rat-kangaroos, bettongs are small, bipedal marsupials that walk on two legs, while using their front feet for digging.
In the past, they used to live in most parts of mainland Australia, but since the late 19th and early 20th century, they faced a major decline in population. They were considered agricultural pests and exterminated. Introduced predators like foxes and cats also pose a threat to them. As a result, bettongs are now found only in a few nature reserves in the southwest of Australia.
When baby bettongs are born, they are not fully developed. They crawl into their mother’s pouch and stay there for about 90 to 105 days. During this time, they drink their mother’s milk and grow.
Baby Marsupials
An underdeveloped offspring of a marsupial, which continues its development in the mother’s pouch is called a “joey.”
Dunnart
Dunnarts are primarily found in southeastern Australia’s different habitats, like grasslands, deserts, and forests. They mostly eat insects such as beetles, cricket larvae, cockroaches, and spiders.
These rodent-like animals are often referred to as “marsupial mice” as they are similar to the common house mice. They are so similar that they even have been found to share nests with them to keep warm in cold weather. Despite their similarity, dunnarts are small marsupials that more closely relate to quolls and Tasmanian devils
Dunnarts have a short pregnancy of only 13.5 days. These short gestation periods are advantageous as it helps the mother stay agile and save resources. After birth, the baby dunnarts stay in the mother’s pouch for about 60-70 days.
Kangaroo
Most people, when asked about a marsupial, would likely think of kangaroos first. Kangaroos are important symbols of Australia and can be seen on the country’s coat of arms. They are known for their hopping movement, strong hind legs, and big tails. They are relatively large marsupials, with some species, such as the red kangaroo growing up to 6 feet tall.
Following a 33-day gestation, kangaroos birth their young, who then attach to a teat in the mother’s pouch for continued growth, typically for 8 to 12 months, depending on the species. Even after leaving the pouch, joeys rely on maternal milk.
Koala
Alongside kangaroos, koalas are famous symbols of Australia. Their closest living relatives are the wombats. They are not very social and spend only a short time each day interacting with others, usually only 15 minutes a day. Most of the time, koalas are on trees and eating mainly eucalyptus leaves. These leaves are not very nutritious and contain toxins that other animals avoid.
Koalas usually have one baby once per year, but sometimes there are twins. The joeys stay in their mother’s pouch for about six months before riding on her back. Around one year old, they become more independent.
Monito del Monte
The Monito del Monte, or ‘monkey of the mountain,’ is found among the bamboo and temperate forests in South America, especially Argentina and Chile. These marsupials mainly eat fruits and insects during the Summer. They are ecologically important as they help spread the seeds of mistletoe plants, which in turn provides nectar for hummingbirds.
The Monito del Monte reproduces once a year in the spring, usually having one to five babies. However, it can only care for up to four of them, so if there are more, one won’t survive. The surviving babies stay in their mother’s pouch for about two months until they’re ready to explore the world on their own.
Numbat
The numbat, also known as the banded anteater, is a small endangered marsupial seen in southern Australia. It eats almost exclusively on termites using its long tongue and sharp claws. The numbat is active during the day and spends most of its time searching for termites – adults need to eat up to 20,000 termites per day! Sadly, its population is declining due to habitat loss and predators like foxes and feral cats.
Unlike other marsupials, female numbats don’t have pouches. When baby numbats are born, they are very tiny at about 2 cm in size and attach to their mother’s teats to feed for around five to six months. Afterward, the mother can leave them in a nest or carry them on her back.
Opossum
Opossums are one of the few marsupials found in the Americas. They started in South America and then made their way to North America. They’re about the size of a house cat and have gray to black fur, a pink nose, and a nearly hairless tail they can grip things with.
They are known for “playing possum.” When opossums feel threatened or hurt, they play dead to fool predators. This natural response helps them deceive potential predators by convincingly portraying the appearance and behavior of a sick or deceased animal that are less appetizing.
Female opossums can have up to 20 babies at once. Right after being born, the babies crawl into their mother’s pouch and drink milk for 2-3 months. After that, they ride on their mother’s back for about four weeks.
Distribution
Marsupials are mostly found in Australia, but they also live in parts of the Americas and New Guinea.
Quokka
Quokkas are known for their happy-looking faces, which have earned them the reputation of being the world’s happiest animals. Although they don’t actually smile as humans do, their natural facial features give them a cheerful appearance.
The quokka is commonly found in western Australia, particularly on Rottnest Island. It’s about the same size as a domestic cat and mainly eats grass, leaves, and other plants like Thomasia species.
Quokkas have a pouch similar to kangaroos. Their babies, called joeys, spend around 5-6 months inside their mother’s pouch for protection and warmth. They’re cute and popular among people, especially on the Internet.
Quoll
Quolls are easy to recognize due to their sandy, brown, or black colored furs that are blotched with white spots. They can be found in Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea consuming insects, small lizards, amphibians, rabbits, and other mammals as they have a carnivorous diet.
In the 1930s, to control pests, the cane toad was brought to Australia but it has negatively impacted quoll populations. The toads are poisonous and can harm animals when ingested, including quolls, which have found a taste for the toads. However, certain quolls have learned to avoid eating cane toads and pass on this behavior to their offspring.
Quoll joeys spend around 2 to 4 months in their mother’s pouch, depending on the species. After that, they ride on their mother’s back for a few weeks.
Sugar Glider
The sugar glider is a small possum that can glide through the air. It has special flaps of skin called patagia that stretch from its front legs to its back legs, allowing it to glide up to 50 meters or more. This helps the sugar glider move between trees and avoid predators. They mostly live in forests in Australia and New Guinea.
Sugar gliders are omnivores, which means they eat both plants and animals. Their diet changes depending on the season. They have a liking for sweet things like nectar, sap, and tree gums, but they also eat lizards and small birds.
When baby sugar gliders are born, they stay in their mother’s pouch for about 110 days before coming out. They live in large groups of around 20 to 40 individuals. When they grow up, young gliders usually leave the group at around 10 months old to start their own families.
Tasmanian Devil
The Tasmanian devil is the largest carnivorous marsupial alive after the extinction of the Tasmanian tiger. It is similar in size to a small dog. It used to only live on the island of Tasmania, but now there is a small population in mainland Australia too.
These animals are skilled hunters and can eat prey as big as a small kangaroo, wombats, bettongs, but they mostly scavenge for carrion. They have a feisty personality and will fight back when threatened while bearing their sharp teeth.
Like many other marsupials, female Tasmanian devils give birth to tiny babies, about the size of a raisin, which crawl into their mother’s pouch and stay there for around 100 days.
Tasmanian Tiger
Unfortunately, the Tasmanian tiger is one of the extinct marsupials on the list. The Tasmanian tiger, also known as the thylacine, was a carnivorous marsupial that lived in Australia and Tasmania. It had stripes on its lower back, which is why it was called the Tasmanian tiger.
The Tasmanian tiger faced a declining population due to being hunted by farmers who saw them as a threat to livestock, and competition with other predators like dingoes exacerbated this decline. The last known Tasmanian tiger died in 1936 at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania, Australia.
When alive, Tasmanian tigers carried their joeys in their pouches for about three months, protecting them until they were half-grown.
Wallaby
Wallabies are animals that originally come from Australia and New Guinea, but they have been introduced to other places like New Zealand and the United Kingdom. They are part of the kangaroo family and look very similar to kangaroos. The main difference between wallabies and kangaroos is that wallabies are smaller, have more fur, and prefer to live in forests and rocky areas.
Like most marsupials, baby wallabies are born very small and helpless. As soon as they are born, they crawl into their mother’s pouch where they stay for at least 9 months while they grow.
Wombat
Wombats are marsupials found in Australia and Tasmania. Wombats have short legs, compact heads, broad feet, and strong claws, making them well-suited for digging. They live in burrows with tunnels and sleeping chambers in mountains, forests, and grasslands. Similar to the bandicoot, a wombat’s pouch faces its rear to prevent dirt from filling it when they dig.
When a baby wombat is born, it weighs only 2 grams and is about the size of a jellybean. The joey immediately climbs into its mother’s pouch to continue growing and stays there for about five months. After that, the joey starts going in and out of the pouch for a few more months, gradually exploring the outside world while still seeking comfort from its mother.
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Jeff Short “Irruptive dynamics of the brush-tailed bettong (Bettongia penicillata) when reintroduced to a fenced sanctuary with feral cats present,” Wildlife Research 50(2), 85-95, (25 November 2022). https://doi.org/10.1071/WR22063
Pursuit, University of Melbourne. Accessed June 26, 2023.
Cook, L. E., Newton, A. H., Hipsley, C. A., & Pask, A. J. (2021). Postnatal development in a marsupial model, the fat-tailed dunnart (Sminthopsis crassicaudata; Dasyuromorphia: Dasyuridae). Communications biology, 4(1), 1028. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02506-2
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