Marsupialia

Marsupialia (subclass Theria, infraclass Metatheria) An order that comprises some 250 species of living marsupials and many extinct forms. In the 1960s it was divided into three suborders (Polyprotodonta, which includes the opossum-like insectivorous, carnivorous, and omnivorous forms; Diprotodontia, containing the phalangers, kangaroos, and other forms evolved from an opossum-like stock, but differing structurally from the polyprotodonts; and Caenolestoidea (classed by others as a superfamily), containing a small group of ‘opossum rats’), but nowadays it is usual to divide the marsupials into several orders: Dasyuromorphia; Didelphimorphia (see DIDELPHOIDEA); Dromiciopsia; Notoryctemorphia (see SYNDACTYLIFORMES); Paucituberculata; and Peramelemorpha; as well as the extinct Sparassodontia. These are often allocated to two cohorts: Ameridelphia and Australidelphia. In this scheme, the name Marsupialia would cease to be used formally. Marsupials are characterized principally by their method of reproduction. The egg is yolky and has a thin shell protecting it from maternal antigens. Placental development is usually very limited and except in the Peramelemorpha the allantois serves no nutritional function, but uterine milk may be taken up by the yolk sac. Within 10–12 days of the breaking of the shell, the embryo (whose fore limbs and associated neural development, mouth, and olfactory system have developed precociously) is born. It crawls into the pouch (marsupium) and attaches itself to a teat, its lips growing around the teat, which injects milk without choking the embryo. In the later stages of its development an offspring may receive high-fat, low-protein milk from one teat while a newer embryo receives high-protein, low-fat milk from another. Marsupials also differ from placentals in their dentition, in the possession of an inflected angular process to the jaw, and in the presence of two marsupial bones which articulate with the pubes. Marsupials and placental mammals apparently diverged from a common ancestor in the Cretaceous. The first marsupials were similar in general form to the opossums of America. In Australia the marsupials radiated to produce a wide array of adaptive types, while in S. America they filled the insectivorous and carnivorous niches for much of the Cenozoic, while placentals occupied the herbivorous niches.