Carnivorous Marsupials

Carnivorous marsupials includes three orders of the Australasian marsupials, they are Dasyuromorphia, the real carnivores like quolls, Tasmanian devils, tiger cats and the numbat and dunnarts. The Peramelemorphia, the omnivorous billbies and bandicoots and Notoryctemorphia which includes two species of marsupial moles. Dasyuromorphia marsupials are among the most impressive of hunting mammals. But due to their smaller size, nocturnal habits and often cryptic behaviour they are overshadowed in the popular imagination by the more conspicuous carnivores of Africa and Asia.

As with all marsupials, the carnivorous species possess a pouch, although in some species, the pouch is little more than a fold in the skin. The young are carried within the pouch until such time that they can no longer be carried while the mother hunts, at which time the young are left until the mother returns with food.