SPECIES OF MAMMALS OF THE PACIFIC AREA 



17 



Meat- and Insect-eating Marsupials. 

 Family Dasyurid^ 



Wolf-like, weasel-like, and rat-like marsupials have all of the 

 toes independent. Four incisor teeth are seen on each side of 

 the upper jaw, three in the lower one; the cheek-teeth have 

 sharp cusps and the upper ones are usually triangular in shape. 



The Marsupial "Wolf," "Tiger," or Thylacine (Thylacinus) , 

 now confined to Tasmania and possibly approaching extinction 



Fig. 5— Marsupial ''Wolf 



there, is the counterpart among marsupials of the true wolf. 

 The snout is rather long, the ears shorter and lower than those 

 of northern dogs and wolves, and the tail is thick at the base, 

 long and tapered. Its color is brown, with a series of blackish 

 brown stripes parallel to the ribs, which begin near the shoul- 

 ders, reach their maximum length in the rump and thighs, and 

 cease a short way beyond the base of the tail. The pouch, open- 

 ing backward, contains four nipples. Two to four young are 

 born. 



The marsupial wolf is about the size of a collie dog ; its over- 

 all length is sixty-five inches, including the twenty-inch tail. 



