Phalangeriformes in the context of "Macropodiformes"

A pollinator is an animal that moves pollen from the male anther of a flower to the female stigma of a flower. This helps to bring about fertilization of the ovules in the flower by the male gametes from the pollen grains.

Insects are the major pollinators of most plants, and insect pollinators include all families of bees and most families of aculeate wasps; ants; many families of flies; many lepidopterans (both butterflies and moths); and many families of beetles. Vertebrates, mainly bats and birds, but also some non-bat mammals (monkeys, lemurs, possums, rodents) and some lizards pollinate certain plants. Among the pollinating birds are hummingbirds, honeyeaters and sunbirds with long beaks; they pollinate a number of deep-throated flowers. Humans may also carry out artificial pollination.

Marsupials are a diverse group of mammals belonging to the infraclass Marsupialia. They are natively found in Australasia, Wallacea, and the Americas. One of marsupials' unique features is their reproductive strategy: the young are born in a relatively undeveloped state and then nurtured within a pouch on their mother's abdomen.

Extant marsupials encompass many species, including kangaroos, koalas, opossums, possums, Tasmanian devils, wombats, wallabies, and bandicoots.

Marsupials are a diverse group of mammals belonging to the infraclass Marsupialia. They are natively found in Australasia, Wallacea, and the Americas. One of marsupials' unique features is their reproductive strategy: the young are born in a relatively undeveloped state and then nurtured within a pouch on their mother's abdomen. Extant marsupials encompass many species, including kangaroos, koalas, opossums, possums, Tasmanian devils, wombats, wallabies, and bandicoots.

Marsupials constitute a clade stemming from the last common ancestor of extant Metatheria, which encompasses all mammals more closely related to marsupials than to placentals. The evolutionary split between placentals and marsupials occurred 125–160 million years ago in the Middle Jurassic–Early Cretaceous period.

Opossums (/əˈpɒsəmz/) are members of the marsupial order Didelphimorphia (/daɪˌdɛlfɪˈmɔːrfiə/) endemic to the Americas. The largest order of marsupials in the Western Hemisphere, it comprises 126 species in 18 genera. Opossums originated in South America and entered North America in the Great American Interchange following the connection of North and South America in the late Cenozoic.

The Virginia opossum is the only species found in the United States and Canada. It is often simply referred to as an opossum; in North America, it is commonly referred to as a possum (/ˈpɒsəm/; sometimes rendered as 'possum in written form to indicate the dropped "o"). The Australasian arboreal marsupials of suborder Phalangeriformes are also called possums because of their resemblance to opossums, but they belong to a different order. The opossum is typically a nonaggressive animal and almost never carries the virus that causes rabies.

Diprotodontia (/daɪˌproʊtəˈdɒntiə/) is the largest extant order of marsupials, with about 155 species, including the kangaroos, wallabies, possums, koala, wombats, and many others. Extinct diprotodonts include the hippopotamus-sized Diprotodon, and Thylacoleo, the so-called "marsupial lion".