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Marsupials are EVERYWHERE. Kangaroos, possums, quokkas, wallabies... the list goes on. From their pouches to their interesting methods of traveling, marsupials are some of the most interesting animals in the world. We're breaking down our favorite facts from this strange group of adorable creatures.
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35 Adorable & Fascinating Marsupial Facts | Mental Floss
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0:00
Did you know there are wild wallabies in Scotland? Since wallabies are a member of the kangaroo
0:05
family, you might expect to only find them in Australia. And there are plenty there. But it
0:10
turns out you can also find them in the UK. We have the Countess of Aran, Fiona Bride-Gore
0:15
to thank for their presence in Scotland. She was a collector of exotic animals who brought them to
0:19
the island of Inchconacan during the 1940s. There are still around 50 to 60 wallabies there today
0:25
Also, this countess was the first person to travel faster than 100 miles per hour in a speedboat
0:29
What a legacy. Beyond that island, wallabies get spotted throughout the UK about 100 times per year
0:35
probably after escaping from zoos or private ownership. Hi, I'm Erin McCarthy, Editor-in-Chief of Mental Floss, and on this episode of The
0:42
List Show, we're talking marsupials. Let's get started. So, what are marsupials
0:53
They're a subgroup of mammals defined by the fact that their young are born very early
0:57
their development, so they continue to grow for weeks to months while attached to their
1:00
mom's nipples. So no umbilical cord or placenta like your typical mammal
1:04
Sometimes the baby's development happens within a pouch, called a marsupium, which marsupials were named after. Marsupials also have some other anatomical features that
1:12
distinguish them from other mammals, but those aren't quite as interesting as the pouch thing
1:17
There are over 250 species of marsupials, and around 200 of them live in Australia
1:21
New Guinea, and nearby islands. That may be because there were fewer mammals to compete
1:25
with in those areas during ancient times, so marsupial diversity was able to thrive
1:30
How ancient? Well, fossils have been found that show that marsupials have been around
1:34
since at least 125 million years ago in the Cretaceous period. The largest marsupial to ever exist that we know about was called a diprotodon
1:42
It kind of looked like a wombat, but it weighed 3 tons, so imagine a wombat the
1:46
size of like 23 large wombats put together. Diprotodon went extinct around 40,000 years ago
1:51
maybe due to climate change or humans hunting it. Kangaroos have to be some of the most well-known marsupials, thanks to that super distinctive
1:58
pouch, adorable joeys, and the way they get around — bipedal hopping. In fact, kangaroos
2:03
are the only large mammals that get around primarily by hopping. As to why that is
2:08
experts don't really know. They evolved to do so over millions of years, and it helps that they
2:12
mostly live in places like deserts and grasslands, where there isn't much plant life to get in their
2:16
way. But it's not a particularly energy-efficient mode of locomotion, unless they're going pretty
2:21
fast. The key to learning more might be the musky rat kangaroo, a brown, rat-looking guy who lives
2:26
in Queensland and is about 16 to 20 inches long. Like kangaroos, they're in the macropod family
2:31
And they're the only member of that family that doesn't hop. So they're our last connection to
2:35
how kangaroos may have moved before they evolved to hop. Researchers believe the way musky rat
2:40
kangaroos travel, on all fours with their hind feet in sync, may be how kangaroos used to get
2:45
around. Regardless of why, kangaroo hopping is pretty impressive. The largest ones, red kangaroos
2:51
can leap 25 feet in distance and 6 feet high. Red kangaroos can also hit 35 miles an hour
2:57
One thing they can do though is hop backward Their feet are too long and their tails are too big Moving on to their other limbs Most kangaroos are left which was determined by researchers who observed kangaroos doing activities like grooming and feeding
3:10
This is the only animal species we know about with a preference for one hand
3:14
Besides people. When I ask you to picture a kangaroo, you're probably not picturing a tree kangaroo
3:20
These dudes, who weigh around 30 pounds, live in the treetops and get around with the help
3:24
of their up to 34-inch-long tail. They even sleep in trees. And they sleep a lot, like 60% of the time
3:31
Living the dream. Another thing that sets them apart. Tree kangaroos are also in the macropod family, but they're the only member of that family
3:37
that can alternate moving one hind limb, then the other, to walk
3:42
If you think sleeping 60% of the time makes tree kangaroos sleepy, I'd like to introduce
3:46
you to the koala that spends up to 20 hours every day resting or sleeping
3:50
Again, goals. They need that much because they primarily eat leaves, which aren't great for energy
3:56
Koalas get most of their water intake from eucalyptus leaves, so it's rare to find one drinking water
4:00
It's thought that the name koala came from an Australian Aboriginal word meaning no drink
4:04
or no water. Because koalas don't move around much, they can blend into their surroundings, making
4:10
them difficult to spot. So when the Australian government wanted to get a koala population estimate in 2020, they
4:15
had to invest some serious resources. They spent two million Australian dollars on things like heat-seeking drones and dogs
4:22
that could detect koala droppings. They also placed recording devices in the wild to pick up the bellows of male koalas
4:27
during breeding season. Even with all that investment, the estimate of koalas still has a pretty wide range of
4:33
somewhere between 224,000 and 524,000. Going back in time, the koala probably had a tail at one point
4:40
Their skeleton shows a place where their koala ancestors likely once had one
4:44
I can't decide if that would be adorable or kind of weird. The smallest marsupials fall under the category of plantigale, or marsupial mouse
4:51
They can be between 2 and 9 inches long, but the tiniest is a long-tailed plantigale, which
4:56
weighs up to 6.6 grams, so about as heavy as a pencil
4:59
Sounds adorable, but these guys can be pretty hardcore, leaping up to five times their height
5:04
to kill prey larger than themselves with a vicious bite. Thanks to their fierce hunting skills, they eat bugs and even small lizards and mammals
5:11
Another group of mouse-looking marsupials are the 19th species of dunnart, which live
5:15
in Australia. The fat-tailed dunnart has an extremely short pregnancy at just under 14 days
5:20
When a joey is born, it's smaller than a grain of rice, and it makes its way to its
5:23
mom's pouch in that condition. These joeys literally crawl before they've grown a skeleton
5:29
Keeping it in the cute little marsupial category, we have the mountain pygmy possum, at between
5:34
30 and 82 grams, so around the weight of a lime. These are the only Australian mammals that live exclusively in the alpine and subalpine regions
5:41
To get through the cold winters, they hibernate for five to seven months, and to prepare for
5:45
that hibernation, they double their body weight. There are actually differences in how mountain pygmy possum males and females hibernate
5:52
Females tend to live in higher altitudes. Then males come to visit for mating season around November or December, which are the
5:57
spring and summer months down under. Around February, they depart for lower altitudes
6:02
Splitting up ensures there are enough resources and hibernation sites for all to survive the winter Wombats are so weird that they could have their own episode They poop in cubes that they stack up to mark their territory Mom wombats have pouches with an opening towards their rear
6:16
rather than their head. It takes them 14 days to digest a meal. I could go on and on. But I'm
6:22
going to focus on wombat burrowing with the time we have for these funny, stout, bear-looking dudes
6:27
At a little over three feet long on average, they're the largest burrowing animal in the world
6:31
They use their big feet and claws to dig tunnels where they burrow. Wombat burrows typically have
6:35
one entrance, with many tunnels branching out from there. Full burrows can be up to 650 feet
6:40
long. And they sometimes use their butts to block the entrance of their burrows to keep predators
6:45
out. The biggest carnivorous marsupial on the planet is the Tasmanian devil, which looks much
6:50
more like a dog than you'd expect if the only Tasmanian devil you know about is Taz from the
6:54
Looney Tunes. Another thing you might not expect, they stink. Tasmanian devils mark their territory
6:59
with a gland that emits a gross-smelling odor. Thanks to that handy ability, they walk around
7:04
stinking like wet dogs. Tasmanian devils are also unique because they're scavengers
7:08
but the only known picky scavengers. In research on the animals, scientists found that only 10
7:13
of them ate whatever they happened to come across. The other 90% had favorite foods
7:17
sometimes possums, sometimes wallabies or rosellas, and they would hold out to eat mostly what they
7:24
preferred. These devils are hopefully aware when another marsupial, the quall, comes along
7:28
because qualls have been witnessed bravely stealing food from Tasmanian devils. A quall
7:32
is around the size of a small house cat, whereas devils are closer to small dogs. But qualls are
7:37
also carnivorous and apparently fast enough to steal some bites of their fellow marsupial's prey
7:41
Qualls also have fluorescent fur. When they're held under UV light, they glow. This has been
7:46
demonstrated with northern qualls specifically, but it's likely that all quall species do
7:51
As for what their glow looks like, the fur usually appears bright pink, but some males
7:55
also have a yellowish-green fluorescence. Those lemon-lime colored qualls have some pretty bizarre mating habits. Is anyone else craving Sprite right now
8:02
Anyway, northern male qualls have been known to walk over six miles in search of a mate
8:06
They're so focused on finding a lady qual that they don't eat enough food
8:10
and get so sleep deprived that they have trouble spotting predators. They often
8:14
die after mating season. Experts call this a suicidal reproducer. There's a semi-aquatic marsupial, known as the water possum, or yuppock. They look kind of like
8:23
little weasley guys that weigh up to 1.7 pounds and have webbed feet. They're found in rivers
8:28
streams, and lakes in Mexico and South America, where they hunt for food like fish, crabs, frogs
8:32
and shrimp. A female yippoc does have a pouch, but she can close it up and make it watertight
8:37
so her young stay dry while she swims. If you live in the U.S. and you've seen an opossum in
8:42
the wild, it's probably the Virginia opossum, which can also be found in South America
8:46
They're typically white, black, and gray, and they weigh up to around 6 pounds. With 52 teeth
8:51
they have the most teeth of any mammal in North America. And with those teeth
8:55
Virginia opossums will eat pretty much anything, including fruit, insects, birds, reptiles
9:00
amphibians, and other mammals. They'll also eat poisonous snakes like pit vipers
9:04
which is possible because they have a peptide in their blood that neutralizes snake venom And if you ever wondered whether it opossum or possum I have answers for you Both terms are conversationally used to refer to the Virginia opossum but in formal writing opossum is correct Some will say that you should call the tree marsupials in
9:22
Australia and its nearby islands possums. They're also known as phalangers. And call the ones you
9:27
find in the Americas opossums. Caveat though, Merriam-Webster notes that people often use the
9:32
terms interchangeably to refer to marsupials on both sides of the world
9:36
If you enjoy the Crash Bandicoot video games, the actual appearance of a bandicoot is kind of a
9:41
surprise. It looks way more like a mouse with a long nose than a cool dude in jeans ready to save
9:45
the world. And you're not alone if you're disappointed by the way they look. In 1805
9:50
one naturalist described them like this. Their muzzle, which is much too long, gives them an air
9:55
exceedingly stupid. Ouch. But bandicoots aren't all disappointment. They're master diggers, which is great for their environment, as this regular turning over of the soil improves its
10:04
health and nutrient content. According to research, bandicoots can complete 41 digs in an hour
10:09
and turn over a total of 28 pounds of soil every night. Bandicoot is actually an order of animals with 20 species in it. One of those is the bilby
10:17
and in Australia, the bilby is sometimes used in place of the Easter Bunny. It all started with a
10:21
1997 book called Billy the Aussie Easter Bilby, and now some Australian chocolate makers make
10:27
chocolate bilbys to enjoy the Easter holiday. Quokkas are the cute, smiley marsupials known
10:32
for being so un-territorial that they'll go right up to people and take selfies. Or be in them
10:37
at least. They don't press the button or anything like that. Anyway, they live in the western part
10:41
of Australia, mostly on islands. The biggest population of quokkas can be found on Rotnest
10:45
Island, which was named in 1696 by Dutch explorer Willem de Vlaming. It was initially ratnest
10:51
meaning rat's nest, because he thought quokkas were large rats. The first marsupials that European
10:57
explorers ever came across from Australia and its neighboring islands were actually animals that
11:01
resemble monkeys called cuscus, which are a bit over two feet tall, with long tails up to 24 inches
11:07
In the wild, they spend plenty of time in the trees, but they've also been domesticated by
11:12
people for millennia. Researchers believe the cuscus may have been the first ever livestock
11:16
or domesticated animal because there's evidence that New Guineans have been moving them from place
11:21
to place since long before the agricultural revolution. The numbat, also known as the bandit
11:26
anteater is one of our pouchless marsupials. Numbats are about 11 inches long with a bonus
11:31
8 inches of bushy tail. And they got that banded anteater nickname for a reason. They have white
11:36
stripes and a 4-inch long skinny tongue they use to dig underground and grab bugs. They eat an
11:41
estimated 15,000 to 20,000 termites every day. So like, about as many starbursts as I eat in a week
11:46
And finally, there are a few different types of gliders. In fact, in 2021 what were once
11:51
once known as sugar gliders, were split into three distinct species, sugar gliders, savanna
11:56
gliders, and Kreffs gliders, all of which can be found in different regions of Australia
12:00
Gliders have a membrane, called a patagium, that connects their forelegs to their hind
12:05
legs, which lets them glide. That's it for this episode of the List Show
12:09
Let us know in the comments which marsupial is the cutest. I think I have to go quokka, but I won't fight you if you say glider
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