What do all marsupials have?

Answer 1

Marsupials are mammals with pouches in which they rear their young. Marsupial young are extremely small and undeveloped when they are born. At birth, they take a long, arduous journey from the birth canal, driven purely by instinct, grabbing hold of the mother marsupial's fur which she has cleaned and made easier to traverse with saliva, to reach the pouch. Upon reaching the pouch, they latch onto a teat which swells in their mouth to prevent them from being accidentally dislodged during the mother's movements. There they stay for months, to complete their development.

However, it cannot be said that all marsupials have pouches. The numbat, for example, has a mere flap of skin. In such animals where the pouch is absent, the young are still born undeveloped, and they cling by instinct to the underside of their mother's belly, still firmly attached to teats which swell in their mouths.

However, all female marsupials have two vaginas, or what are called paired lateral vaginae. These are for the purpose of transporting the sperm to the womb, but there is a midline pseudovaginal canal for actually giving birth. As well as two vaginas and two uteruses, female marsupials have two fallopian tubes and two cervixes.

All marsupials also have fur.

Answer 2

All Marsupials have a very unique distinction among other mammals; they all have a pouch of skin near their abdomen where the nipples are found, letting the first lucky newborns be fed. Most people think that all Marsupials today are only found in Australia, but the Opossum is a Marsupial that lives in North America. The Oppossum is famous in the Southern United States for "playing dead." A characteristic that all marsupials have in common is that they raise their young in an external pouch connected to their body. The young are born extremely undeveloped, and continue most of their development within the pouch, after birth.

Answer 3

Marsupials are mammals with pouches in which they rear their young. Marsupial young are extremely small and undeveloped when they are born. At birth, they take a long, arduous journey from the birth canal, driven purely by instinct, grabbing hold of the mother marsupial's fur which she has cleaned and made easier to traverse with saliva, to reach the pouch. Upon reaching the pouch, they latch onto a teat which swells in their mouth to prevent them from being accidentally dislodged during the mother's movements. There they stay for months, to complete their development.

Not all marsupials have pouches, e.g. the numbat has a mere flap of skin, but in animals where the pouch is absent, the young are still born undeveloped, and they cling by instinct to the underside of their mother's belly, still firmly attached to teats which swell in their mouths.

However, all female marsupials have two vaginas, or what are called paired lateral vaginae. These are for the purpose of transporting the sperm to the womb, but there is a midline pseudovaginal canal for actually giving birth. As well as two vaginas and two uteruses, female marsupials have two fallopian tubes and two cervixes.

All marsupials also have fur.

Answer 4

Apart from characteristics common to all mammals (e.g. fur; breathe with lungs; four chambered heart), there is no characteristic which all marsupials have in common.

There are several characteristic, however, which all female marsupials have in common - and the presence of a pouch is not one of them. The numbat, for example, does not have a pouch.

Female marsupials all feed their young on mothers' milk, but so do all mammals, so that is not unique to just marsupials. What is unique to female marsupials are the following

• The young, known as joeys, are born extremely undeveloped. At birth, the joey makes its way to the mother's pouch (or in the case of the numbat, the teats on her abdomen) where it latches onto a teat, remaining there for many months to continue its development. This fact of being born undeveloped is the defining characteristic of a marsupial.
• Female marsupials have two vaginas, or what are called paired lateral vaginae. These are for the purpose of transporting the sperm to the womb, but there is a midline pseudovaginal canal for actually giving birth. As well as two vaginas and two uteruses, female koalas have two fallopian tubes and two cervixes. (Some, not all, male marsupials have a two-pronged penis to accommodate the females' two vaginas.)

Answer 5

Different species of marsupials have different adaptations, but there are a few adaptations that most species have in common.

Many marsupials (but not all) have pouches in which they rear their young. This is an adaptation because, at birth, marsupial joeys are characterised by being extremely small and undeveloped. They display an adaptation in that, at birth, they take a long, arduous journey from the birth canal, driven purely by instinct, grabbing hold of the mother marsupial's fur which she has cleaned and made easier to traverse with saliva, to reach the pouch. Upon reaching the pouch, they latch onto a teat which swells in their mouth to prevent them from being accidentally dislodged during the mother's movements. There they stay for months, to complete their development. In the case of marsupials that do not have pouches, such as numbats, the young are still born undeveloped, and they cling by instinct to the underside of their mother's belly, still firmly attached to teats which swell in their mouths.

Female marsupials have two vaginas, or what are called paired lateral vaginae. These are for the purpose of transporting the sperm to the womb, but there is a midline pseudovaginal canal for actually giving birth. As well as two vaginas and two uteruses, female marsupials have two fallopian tubes and two cervixes. Most male marsupials, with the exception of the largest species, the Red Kangaroo, Eastern Grey and Western Grey Kangaroos, have a "bifurcated" or two-pronged penis to accommodate the females' two vaginas.

Answer 6

All marsupials are mammals, I'm pretty sure. They carry their young in pouches, and feed them milk from inside the pouches, but they are born live, and have fur.

Answer 7

Most female marsupials have a pouch. The numbat is a marsupial but it does not have a pouch.

Answer 8

Marsupials are mammals which don't have a placenta. Instead, they have a pouch where the offspring develop.