Marsupials

This group gathers Mammals subcategory members belonging to the infraclass Marsupialia, the pouched mammals, whose young are born at a very early, embryo-like stage of development and complete most of their growth attached to a nipple, usually inside a protective pouch, rather than through a long gestation inside the womb as in placental mammals. The great majority of living marsupial species are native to Australia and New Guinea, including the kangaroos, wallabies, the koala, the wombats, the Tasmanian devil and a wide range of smaller carnivorous marsupials such as the antechinus and dunnart genera, while a smaller number, the opossums, are native to the Americas. The thylacine, a large carnivorous marsupial hunted to extinction in the twentieth century, is also placed here as the order's best documented recent extinction.