Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- An order of the class Mammalia, coextensive with the subclass Didelphia, containing implacental mammals usually provided with a marsupium or pouch for the reception and nourishment of the young; the marsupials or pouched animals.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- proper noun plural (Zoöl.) A subclass of Mammalia, including nearly all the mammals of Australia and the adjacent islands, together with the opossums of America. They differ from ordinary mammals in having the corpus callosum very small, in being implacental, and in having their young born while very immature. The female generally carries the young for some time after birth in an external pouch, or marsupium. Called also
Marsupiata .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun coextensive with the subclass Metatheria
Etymologies
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Examples
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New Holland has merely marsupial and some monotrematous, but no placental, mammalia; even its tertiary strata give no placental mammalia, but marsupialia, in analogy with all living genera, herbivorous, and carnivorous.
The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality Rudolf Schmid
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The first traces of mammalia to be found in the Upper Keuper formation, and in the Jura, belong to the order of opossums or marsupialia;
The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality Rudolf Schmid
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As these moral instincts have displaced the former instincts of the animal predecessors of man -- say, _e. g._, of sharks, of marsupialia, of lemurides -- so they must {380} also expect it any time to be displaced in turn by new and still more useful instincts.
The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality Rudolf Schmid
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Out of the fish he concludes that the amphibia were developed, and out of those the reptilia, out of one of them the marsupialia, and from them the lemurs or half-apes, the representatives of which yet live in Madagascar and the southern part of Asia.
The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality Rudolf Schmid
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From reptiles we advance to birds, and thence to mammalia, which are commenced by marsupialia, acknowledgedly low forms in their class.
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Generally, however, the mammalian remains of this period belong to what are considered the lower classes -- the monotremata and marsupialia.
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But the greatest curiosity in the structure of this creature was a pouch like opening which appeared under her belly, and which showed that she belonged to the family of the _marsupialia_, or pouched animals.
The Desert Home The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness Mayne Reid 1850
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It is an interesting circumstance that the first mammifers found should have belonged to the marsupialia, when the place of that order in the scale of creation is considered.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation Robert Chambers 1836
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And certainly the greater part of its surface is not fitted to be an advantageous place of residence for beings above the marsupialia, and judging from analogy, it may yet be subjected to a series of changes in the highest degree inconvenient to any human beings who may have settled upon it.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation Robert Chambers 1836
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From reptiles we advance to birds, and thence to mammalia, which are commenced by marsupialia, acknowledgedly low forms in their class.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation Robert Chambers 1836
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