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Marsupials are intriguing creatures known for their distinctive pouches, such as kangaroos, possums, and koalas. Despite being mammals, their pregnancies are remarkably brief, lasting only a matter of days or weeks. Their offspring are born undeveloped, resembling embryos rather than typical newborns. Unlike most mammals, marsupial young are born prematurely and must crawl into their mother’s pouch, where they attach themselves and continue to grow for several weeks or even months. However, this is just the beginning of the oddities surrounding these remarkable creatures. Here are some fascinating and unusual facts about marsupials that you may not have known!
1. Kangaroos Cannot Jump Backward
Kangaroos, the largest marsupials on Earth today, possess large feet and powerful tails that aid in their incredible jumping abilities. These features enable kangaroos to leap impressive distances, with adults capable of jumping up to 30 feet in a single bound. While they are agile and swift in moving forward or sideways, kangaroos are unable to move backward due to their unique anatomy. Despite this limitation, they can hop at speeds of around 15.5 mph and can reach bursts of up to 43 mph if necessary.
2. Wombats Produce Cubic Poop
The bare-nosed wombat is known for its peculiar habit of excreting cube-shaped droppings, with the animal typically depositing around 100 of these distinctive cubes daily to mark its territory. This unusual phenomenon is a result of the wombat’s specialized intestinal structure, resulting in the formation of square-shaped feces.
3. The Smallest Marsupial Measures Less Than 3 Inches
The long-tailed planigale, the smallest marsupial in the world, resembles a miniature mouse with a flattened head. These tiny creatures grow to a length of just 2.2 to 2.6 inches and weigh a mere 0.20 ounces at most. Despite their diminutive size, long-tailed planigales are formidable carnivores, utilizing their flat heads to navigate through narrow spaces in search of food and shelter.
4. Dunnarts Can Respirate Through Their Skin
Julia Creek dunnarts are born with the ability to breathe through their skin, as their lungs are not fully functional at birth. This remarkable adaptation allows them to survive until their lungs mature and become capable of respiration. Even as their lungs develop, their skin continues to play a significant role in their breathing process.
5. Tasmanian Devils Possess Startling Sneezing Habits
Tasmanian devils, exclusive to Tasmania, are known for their distinctive vocalizations and sounds. These creatures emit a variety of eerie noises, living up to their intimidating moniker.
1. Tasmanian devils have a wide range of vocalizations, including growls, screeches, snorts, and even sneezes. They often sneeze when trying to intimidate other animals or when preparing to engage in a scuffle with another devil. However, much of the time, it’s just a bluff to appear tough.
2. A giant marsupial called the diprotodon once roamed Australia during the Pleistocene, around 1.77 million years ago. Resembling a huge wombat, these massive marsupials stood nearly 6 feet tall at the shoulders, 13 feet long, and possibly weighed 7,700 pounds. They had long, narrow heads with powerful chewing muscles, strong jaws, and constantly growing front teeth. Diprotodons fed on various plants like grasses, twigs, shrubs, trees, and leaves.
3. Some marsupials, such as wombats and Tasmanian devils, have backward-facing pouches to protect their offspring from dirt and debris while digging. This unusual pouch orientation is a unique adaptation among certain marsupials.
4. Red kangaroo joeys are tiny at birth, only about the size of a jellybean. Red kangaroos, the largest type of kangaroo, have short pregnancies of up to 34 days and give birth to one joey at a time. Joeys instinctively crawl into their mother’s pouch after birth, where they remain for months before gradually exploring the world around them.
5. Koalas have pouches where their babies develop, but unlike other marsupials, koalas do not clean their pouches. The unique mix of antimicrobial proteins inside the pouch acts as a cleaning system, maintaining hygiene without the need for active cleaning by the mother.
6. Marsupial moles, known as “itjaritjari,” lack functional eyes and scrotums. These peculiar marsupials inhabit the sandy deserts of Central Australia and have evolved unique features, such as vestigial eyes that do not serve a visual purpose.
Marsupial moles have unique shields to protect them while digging underground in complete darkness. Their eyes lack pupils and are essentially useless in the dark. Additionally, these marsupials are the only ones without a scrotum; instead, the males’ testicles are internal for protection from sand and dirt.
The Tasmanian devil and the spotted-tail quoll have incredibly strong bites relative to their body sizes, with the devil having the strongest bite force of any predatory mammal. The quoll, about the size of a house cat, ranks second in jaw strength compared to its size, rivaling that of a lion.
Male antechinuses have short lifespans due to intense mating habits that result in exhaustion and death after the breeding season. Female dunnarts have remarkably short pregnancies lasting 10 to 11 days, despite giving birth to babies with typical marsupial structures.
The green ringtail possum boasts unique green fur and is considered Near-Threatened. Quolls, cute cat-sized marsupials, are skilled climbers and scavengers that share communal bathroom areas despite being solitary animals.
If you come across a cluster of spiral-shaped droppings, you’ve likely stumbled upon a communal quoll bathroom. The article “Their 3-Week Mating Frenzy Routinely Kills This Marsupial” is featured on A-Z Animals.
