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The mammals of Australia have a rich fossil history, as well as a variety of extant mammalian species, dominated by the marsupials, but also including monotremes and placentals. The marsupials evolved to fill specific ecological niches, and in many cases they are physically similar to the placental mammals in Eurasia and North America that ...
Koala Humpback whale. A total of 386 species of mammals have been recorded in Australia and surrounding continental waters: 364 indigenous and 22 introduced. [1] The list includes 2 monotremes, 154 marsupials, 83 bats, 69 rodents (5 introduced), 10 pinnipeds, 2 terrestrial carnivorans (1 recent introduction, and 1 prehistoric introduction), 13 introduced ungulates, 2 introduced lagomorphs, 44 ...
The second subclass is divided into two infraclasses: pouched mammals (the marsupials) and placental mammals. Australia is home to two of the five extant species of monotremes and the majority of the world's marsupials (the remainder are from Papua New Guinea, eastern Indonesia and the Americas).
Thylacoleo carnifex (the marsupial lion) is the largest known carnivorous mammal to have ever lived in prehistoric Australia, and was of comparable size to female placental mammal lions and tigers, It had a catlike skull with large slicing pre-molars, a retractable thumb-claw and massive forelimbs. It was almost certainly carnivorous and a tree ...
The latter subclass is divided into two infraclasses: pouched mammals (metatherians or marsupials), and placental mammals (eutherians, for which see List of placental mammals). Classification updated from Wilson and Reeder's "Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference" using the "Planet Mammifères" website. [1]
A variety of placental mammals have been introduced to Australia since the arrival of Captain Cook in 1770. They have ranged in size from rodents to deer. This is a sub-list of the list of mammals of Australia. Note that this sub-list includes six species of introduced rodent that are also included in the rodents of Australia sub-list.
This is a list of rodents of Australia. [1] [2] Australia has a large number of indigenous rodents, all from the family Muridae.The "Old endemics" group are member of tribe Hydromyini, which reached Australasia between 11 – 9 million years ago from Asia, while the "New endemics", members of the tribe Rattini, are presumed to have arrived more recently, between 4 – 3 million years ago, also ...
Although terrestrial marsupials and placental mammals did coexist in Australia in the Eocene, only the marsupials have survived to the present. Non-volant placental mammals made their reappearance in Australia in the Miocene, when Australia moved closer to Indonesia , and rodents started to appear reliably in the Late Miocene fossil record.