THE POUCHED ANIMALS 



45 



Fig. 31. — Opossum and Young. 



Opossums have a wide range, even to California. In 

 Brazil and other provinces of South America there are 

 several species, one of which is as large as a squirrel. 

 Some species have no pouches or only rudimentary ones. 

 One from Surinam resembles a brown rat. Another 

 form is not larger than a mouse and preys upon birds. 

 Still another opossum, found in Peru, is a fruit eater. In 

 Guiana and Brazil is found one of the most interesting 

 of the tribe, the water opossum, with webbed hind feet 

 and a perfect pouch. The yapoch, as it is called, re- 

 sembles the otter in its habits, eating small animals. 



It is an interesting fact that almost all the marsupials 

 are natives of Australia, and that all the native mammals 

 of that isolated continent are marsupials, a rule that held 

 far back in the Quaternary times, when the pouch bearers 

 were giants. The diprotodon was a kangaroo as large as 

 a rhinoceros, its skull alone being three feet in length. 



