Re: Marsupial forelimbs... or rather hindlimbs

[Andreas Johansson <andreasj@gmail.com>]

On 11/26/07, David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at> wrote:
> Here's the promised SVP meeting abstract, _emphasis_ (italics) in the 
> original:
>
> ---------
>
> Vera Weisbecker, Anjali Goswami, Marcelo SÃnchez-Villagra & Stephen Wroe: 
> Postcranial sequence heterochrony and the marsupial-placental dichotomy, SVP 
> meeting abstracts 2007, 164A
>
> It has long been recognized that there is a deep dichotomy between marsupials 
> and placentals in terms of taxonomic and ecological diversity. Marsupial 
> species known today comprise a small percentage of the number of placental 
> species, and have no extremely specialized (e.g. aerial or fully aquatic) 
> representatives.
>

It'd seem to me there's an obvious reason for the lack of fully
aquatic marsupials - if a marsupial mother goes swimming for any
significant length of time, any young in the pouch drowns. Am I
missing something?

-- 
Andreas Johansson

Why can't you be a non-conformist just like everybody else?