The key difference between mammal and marsupial is that the mammal is a vertebrate which nourishes their young with milk produced inside the mammary glands of the mother while marsupial is a type of mammal which has a pouch to keep and nourish their undeveloped young ones.
Mammal and marsupial belong to the same family in which the members are warm-blooded. Furthermore, they are chordates, which have a backbone and hair or fur. Moreover, they are air-breathing animals that give birth to young instead of laying eggs. Furthermore, mammal and marsupial females produce milk for the nourishment of their young. The distinctive character of marsupial is the pouch that they possess to carry their undeveloped young.
CONTENTS
1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is a Mammal
3. What is a Marsupial
4. Similarities Between Mammal and Marsupial
5. Side by Side Comparison – Mammal vs Marsupial in Tabular Form
6. Summary
What is a Mammal?
Mammals are vertebrate animals which possess sweat glands to regulate heat in the body as these creatures are warm-blooded. Mammals have a placenta in which the undeveloped offspring are reared and fed with nourishment and is usually inside the “womb” of the females of this class.
Figure 01: Mammal
Mammals “give birth” to young offspring and feed with milk through the mammary glands and this feature defines the classification and difference with other animals.
What is a Marsupial?
Marsupials are a sub-class of the mammal family where most of its members such as the kangaroo, wombats, Tasmanian devils and koala that can be found in Australia New Guinea and South America. These animals give birth to a live offspring, but they keep undeveloped young ones inside a pouch. Hence, they are pouched mammals.
Figure 02: Marsupial
The undeveloped young marsupials are getting nourishment from the mother until they become mature. Hence, further development of the young takes place in that pouch, outside the mother’s womb.
What are the Similarities Between Mammal and Marsupial?
- Mammal and marsupial have hairy skin.
- They nurse their young.
- Also, both mammal and marsupial belong to Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Chordata and Class Mammalia.
- Moreover, they are air-breathing, vertebrate, warm-blooded animals and provide nourishment to their young with milk.
What is the Difference Between Mammal and Marsupial?
Marsupials are a group of mammals which have a pouch to carry their young in order to nourish them till they become mature. On the other hand, the mammal is a vertebrate which feeds their young with milk produced by the mammary glands of the mother. This is the key difference between mammal and marsupial. A further difference between mammal and marsupial is that the mammals give birth to a fully developed offsprings while the marsupials give birth to a tiny creature which needs further nourishment from mother while staying in the pouch.
One more difference between mammal and marsupial is their sex organs. Mamals have only one genitalia but, marsupials have two and in addition, have a pouch too.
Summary – Mammal vs Marsupial
Mammals and marsupials are both mammals who share the similarity in giving birth to young offspring and feeding them with milk. Marsupials give birth to a very tiny creature which needs more time to become a fully grown animal inside a pouch which suckles a teat in it. On the other hand, mammal gives birth to an offspring which is bigger and fully grown. Hence, it is a painful process. Also, marsupial has two sexual organs, for both male and female, and a pouch while mammals only got one and don’t have a pouch. Marsupials, although warm-blooded, have a slightly lower blood temperature than that of mammals. Thus, this is the summary of the difference between mammal and marsupial.
Reference:
1.“Marsupial.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Oct. 2018. Available here
Image Courtesy:
1.”Mammal Diversity 2011″By Dermoptère (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Commons Wikimedia
2.”Kangaroo and joey03″By Taken byfir0002 – Own work, (GFDL 1.2) via Commons Wikimedia