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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 ...
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).
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 ...
Thylacotinga bartholomaii – a strange marsupial omnivore; Tingamarra porterorum – possibly Australia's oldest placental land mammal, though not without controversy; Australonycteris clarkae – Australia’s earliest known bat species. Estimated to be 55 million years old, this is one of the oldest bat fossils ever to be found. [6]
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 ...
[54] [55] Only three species of non-native placental mammal were not deliberately introduced to Australia: the house mouse, black rat and the brown rat. The dugong is an endangered species; the largest remaining population is found in Australian waters. [56] [57] Forty-six marine mammals from the order Cetacea are found in Australian coastal ...
At Murgon evidence of a placental mammal, a Condylarth (Tingamarra porterorum), was discovered. [6] Placental mammals were also found in North America and South America at this time. This find suggests that placental mammals did coexist with marsupials in Australia in the early Tertiary, although only marsupials persisted.
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.