Abstract
As all first-year zoology students well know,the Australian marsupials represent an adaptive radiation recalling that of eutherian mammals elsewhere. Australian marsupials include a wide range of herbivores, insectivores and carnivores; they are found in virtually every habitat from alpine to desert to rain forest; and the group lacks only conspicuous rodent-like and bat-like forms — significantly, relatively recently immigrant placental mammals fill these roles.
John A. W. Kirsch is Assistant Professor of Biology at Yale University, where he also curates the Mammal section of the Peabody Museum Of Natural History. He has worked on the comparative serology of marsupials under W. D. L. Ride at the University of Western Australia and spent fourteen months collecting marsupials and rodents in South America. He is currently working on the functional morphology of marsupials, and the DNA of New World rodents.
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Kirsch, J.A.W., Calaby, J.H. (1977). The species of living marsupials: an annotated list. In: Stonehouse, B., Gilmore, D. (eds) The Biology of Marsupials. Studies in Biology, Economy and Society. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02721-7_2
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