Random Fascinating Facts You Probably Never Learned About Marsupials (25 items)

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  (#1) Kangaroo

  • Animal

  Female kangaroos have two vaginas for sperm and one for the joey, which climbs out of that vagina after it is born and makes its way up the mother's body to the pouch, where it chills on a nipple until it is fully developed.
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  (#2) Stoned Wallabies Will Make Crop Circles

  What happens when wallabies eat opium poppies? They hop around "as high as a kite" and make crop circles, of course!
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  (#3) Koala

  • Animal

  Three quick koala facts: 1.) About 75% of all female koalas have chlamydia, 2.) no one knows why, and 3.) they spread it through rampant lesbian behavior while in captivity. Seriously!
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  (#4) Possum

  • Organism Classification

  Possums may not be able to fetch, but they can sure play dead: when possums are "playing possum," they are actually just passed out from stress (most likely from a predator).
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  (#5) Opossum

  • Organism Classification

  Opossums produce a protein that renders them virtually immune to almost all snake poison. Pretty cool, right? That's not even the best part: scientists have injected the protein into rats, rendering them immune as well!
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  (#6) Wombat

  • Family

  If wombats used emoji they would need their own special little poop symbol. That's because wombats have cube-shaped poop! Why? It just comes out that way, but scientists say it's advantageous because it stays put and helps wombats to better mark their territory.
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  (#7) Tasmanian Devil

  • Animal

  Ever sneeze so hard you scare your significant other? Tasmanian devils may be your spirit animal! These little devils put their sneezes to good use by scaring predators away with especially powerful sneezes.
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  (#8) Numbat

  Numbats may be adorable, but they're fierce killing machines... to termites! They use their bizarrely long tongues to slurp up around 20,000 termites per day.
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  (#9) Bandicoot

  • Organism Classification

  The award for "Shortest Mammalian Pregnancy" goes to a marsupial called a bandicoot. A bandicoot is only pregnant for 12 days before the little baby bandicoot is born and starts hanging out in its mother's pouch.
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  (#10) Bettong

  • Organism Classification

  They don't know they have green thumbs, but woylies are excellent gardeners! They improve soil quality when they dig for food and drop seeds all over the place, helping to disperse plant life in Western Australia.
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  (#11) Bilby

  • Organism Classification

  Long-eared nocturnal bilbies are pretty low-maintenance in the food and drink department: they never have to drink water because they get all they need from their food!
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  (#12) Quoll

  • Organism Classification

  Quolls are fairly solitary creatures... except when it comes to potty time. The spotted marsupials agree on a communal area that is dedicated for peeing and pooping.
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  (#13) Quokka

  • Organism Classification

  Quokkas are super cute marsupials, but the mothers will sacrifice their babies to predators in order to survive. That's cold.
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  (#14) Dunnart

  • Organism Classification

  Dunnarts are the only mammals that can breathe through their skin! Only the newborns can do it, but it's still a neat trick: it allows the teeny-tiny dunnart to live before its lungs are developed.
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  (#15) Antechinus

  • Organism Classification

  The tiny marsupial antechinus only gets to have sex once before it dies. It's a pretty rough way to go, too: they get gangrene and develop ulcerations before they pass on.
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  (#16) Sugar Glider

  • Organism Classification

  A male sugar glider rubs its bald spot - which is actually a scent gland - against other sugar gliders to mark its territory.
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  (#17) Musky Rat-Kangaroos Can Only Be Found In One Australian Rainforest

  The world's smallest kangaroo is also one of the rarest: the musky rat-kangaroo can only be found in a small rainforest in northeast Queensland, Australia.
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  (#18) Cuscus Males Bite Prospective Mates

  The male cuscus (not couscous!) has a curious way of getting the attention of a potential mate: he bites her! For an encore, he also chases her around in the middle of the night.
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  (#19) Marsupial Moles Have Upside-Down Pouches

  Marsupial moles are very unusual creatures: they're blind, they don't have ears, they're only five inches long, and no one knows how they mate. But one of the coolest "features" of a marsupial mole - which isn't actually a mole - is its upside-down pouch. Why is it flipped around? To keep sand and dirt out when digging.
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  (#20) Monito del Monte

  • Organism Classification

  Scientists call the adorable South American marsupial monito del monte ("Monkey of the Mountains") a "living fossil" because it is the only living member of the Microbiotheria order, an otherwise extinct species.
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  (#21) Male Thylacines Had Pouches, Too (To Protect Their Scrotums)

  All female marsupials have pouches, but a couple of male marsupials sport them as well, including the extinct "Tasmanian Tiger" called the thylacine. Male thylacines had pouches to protect their scrotums.
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  (#22) Diprotodon Was The Largest Marsupial Ever

  The largest-ever marsupial was the mammoth diprotodon. How big was it? Its jawbone alone was a foot long and its pouch was large enough to carry a human!
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  (#23) Potoroo

  • Organism Classification

  There are only just over 100 Gilbert's potoroos in the world, making it the rarest marsupial out there. Scientists are working to conserve the species by keeping it away from its natural predators, such as feral cats and foxes.
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  (#24) Marsupial lion

  The long-extinct marsupial "lion" used to be the biggest meat-eating mammal in Australia, measuring 59 inches head-to-tail and 30 inches high at the shoulder. It used a huge slicing cheek tooth and a large incisor to devour its prey, all while still sporting (for the females, at least) a baby-carrying pouch that has long been the mark of a marsupial.
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  (#25) Tasmanian Pademelon

  • Organism Classification

  Male pademelons that want to get the attention of a prospective mate will cluck softly at her using a sound that is remarkably similar to the sound the females use when calling to their young.

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