Australian Animals - On the Land

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Australian Animals On the Land

Marsupials are the group of mammals commonly thought of as pouched mammals. They give live birth, but they do not have long gestation times like placental mammals. Instead, they give birth very early and the young animal, essentially a helpless embryo, climbs from the mother's birth canal to the nipples. There it grabs on with its mouth and continues to develop, often for weeks or months depending on the species. The short gestation time is due to the lack of a placenta in the mother marsupial, which would otherwise nourish the developing embryo using the mother's blood supply. A few marsupials do have a sort of placenta, but these have evolved convergently in marsupials and are not exactly the same as those found in placental mammals. Like other mammals, the marsupials are covered with hair. Mothers nurse their young.
Below you will find pictures of some of Australia's native marsupials. There are thousands of Australian Marsupial's, however, I have put a few of the common ones here.

Red Kangaroo Nursing her young