usa world animals vocab health science math brain

A bandicoot is any of about 20 species of small to medium-sized, terrestrial marsupial omnivores in the order Peramelemorphia. The word bandicoot is an anglicised form of the Telugu word pandhi-kokku, (loosely, pig-dog) which originally referred to the unrelated Indian Bandicoot Rat. The other two species of peramelemorphs are the bilbies.


Who, What, Where, When: Bilbies are marsupial omnivores; they are members of the Peramelemorphia biological order and the largest of the bandicoots. Before European colonization of Australia there were two species. One became extinct in the 1950s, the other survives but remains endangered.

Just the Facts: Bilbies have the characteristic long bandicoot muzzle and very long ears. As compared with other bandicoots, they have a longer tail, bigger ears, and softer, silky fur.

"Sorry, I don't drink..." They are nocturnal omnivores that do not need to drink water, as they get all the moisture they need from their food, which includes insects and their larvae, seeds, spiders, bulbs, fruit, fungi and very small animals.



Unusual Marsupial: The embryos of bandicoots, unlike other marsupials, form a placenta-like organ that connects it to the uterine wall. The function of this organ is probably to transfer nutrients from the mother; however the structure is small compared to those of the placentalia.

Classification Confusion: Classification within the Peramelemorphia used to be simple: there were thought to be two families in the order — the short-legged and mostly herbivorous bandicoots, and the longer-legged, more nearly carnivorous bilbies. In recent years, however, it has become clear that the situation is more complex. First, the bandicoots of the New Guinean and far-northern Australian rainforests were deemed distinct from all other bandicoots, and these were grouped together in the separate family Peroryctidae. More recently, the bandicoot families were reunited in Peramelidae, with the New Guinean species split into four genera in two subfamilies, Peroryctinae and Echymiperinae, while the "true bandicoots" occupy the subfamily Peramelinae. The only exception is the extinct Pig-footed Bandicoot, which has been given its own family, Chaeropodidae.



 Kingdom: Animalia

 Phylum: Chordata

 Class: Mammalia

 Infraclass: Marsupialia

 Order: Peramelemorphia