General Traits

 All mammals are warm-blooded so they are able to regulate their own body temperature, which
enables them to live in a variety of environments, cold or hot or in between.
 All mammals have fur or hair. Hair or fur can take on a variety of forms, such as whiskers, spines
or even horns. Hair provides insulation, protects the skin and serves as camouflage.
 All mammals have backbones. All mammals except the echidna have teeth. Mammals have four
limbs. In some mammals, such as whales and manatees, their limbs are fins and flippers.
 All female mammals have mammary glands to produce milk to feed their young. Most female
mammals have nipples to nurse their young.
 Some mammals are meat eaters, such as mountain lions and lynx. Some eat meat and
everything else, like raccoons and bears. Some are plant eaters, like elephants and deer.

Monotremes are one of the three main groups of living mammals, along with placentals and marsupials.
Monotremes are mammals that lay eggs. The monotremes are typified by structural differences in their
brains, jaws, digestive tract, reproductive tract, and other body parts compared to the more common
mammalian types.

1. Wombats are short-legged, muscular quadrupedal marsupials that are native to Australia. They
are about 1 m in length with small, stubby tails and weigh between 20 and 35 kg. There are
three extant species and they are all members of the family Vombatidae.
2. The opossum is a marsupial of the order Didelphimorphia endemic to the Americas. The largest
order of marsupials in the Western Hemisphere, it comprises 103 or more species in 19 genera.
Opossums originated in South America and entered North America in the Great American
Interchange following the connection of the two continents. Their unspecialized biology, flexible
diet, and reproductive habits make them successful colonizers and survivors in diverse locations
and conditions
3. Macropodidae is a family of marsupials, commonly known as kangaroos, wallabies, tree-
kangaroos, wallaroos, pademelons, quokkas, and several other terms. These genera are allied to
the suborder Macropodiformes, containing other macropods, and are native to the Australian
continent, the mainland and Tasmania, and in New Guinea or nearby islands.
4. The order Dasyuromorphia (meaning "hairy tail" in greek) comprises most of the Australian
carnivorous marsupials, including quolls, dunnarts, the numbat, the Tasmanian devil, and the
thylacine. In Australia, the exceptions include the omnivorous bandicoots (order
Peramelemorphia) and the marsupial moles (which eat meat but are very different and are now
accorded an order of their own, Notoryctemorphia). Numerous South American species of
marsupials (orders Didelphimorphia, Paucituberculata, and Microbiotheria) are also carnivorous.
Some extinct members of Diprotodontia order like extinct kangaroos such as Ekaltadeta and
Propleopus and thylacoleonids were carnivorous too. Some members of partially extinct clade
Metatheria and all members of extinct superorder Sparassodonta were carnivorous too.
5. Phalangeriformes is a suborder of any of about 70 small to medium-sized arboreal marsupial
species native to Australia, New Guinea, and Sulawesi. The suborder includes animals commonly
known as possums, gliders, and cuscus.
6. Diprotodontia is an order of about 155 species of marsupial mammals including the kangaroos,
wallabies, possums, koala, wombats, and many others. Extinct diprotodonts include the
rhinoceros-sized Diprotodon, and Thylacoleo, the so-called "marsupial lion".
7. Macrotis, known as bilbies or rabbit-bandicoots, is a genus of desert-dwelling marsupial
omnivores; they are members of the order Peramelemorphia. At the time of European
colonisation of Australia, there were two species. The lesser bilby became extinct in the 1950s;
the greater bilby survives but remains endangered.
8. Australidelphia is the superorder that contains roughly three-quarters of all marsupials,
including all those native to Australasia and a single species[i] from South America (all other
American marsupials are members of the Ameridelphia). Analysis of retrotransposon insertion
sites in the nuclear DNA of a variety of marsupials has shown that the South American monito
del monte's lineage is the most basal of the superorder.
9. The order Peramelemorphia includes the bandicoots and bilbies; it equates approximately to
the mainstream of marsupial omnivores. All members of the order are endemic to the twin land
masses of Australia-New Guinea and most have the characteristic bandicoot shape: a plump,
arch-backed body with a long, delicately tapering snout, very large upright ears, relatively long,
thin legs, and a thin tail. Their size varies from about 140 grams up to 4 kilograms,[1] but most
species are about one kilogram, or the weight of a half-grown kitten.
10. The pygmy possums are a family of small possums that together form the marsupial family
Burramyidae. The five extant species of pygmy possum are grouped into two genera. Four of the
species are endemic to Australia, with one species also co-occurring in Papua New Guinea and
Indonesia.
11. The family Caenolestidae contains the seven surviving species of shrew opossum: small, shrew-
like marsupials that are confined to the Andes mountains of South America. The order is thought
to have diverged from the ancestral marsupial line very early.