rat kangaroo

Any of various small marsupials of the suborder Macropodiformes and especially of the family Potoroidae of New Guinea, Australia, and adjacent islands, resembling large rodents.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

rat kangaroo

(Animals) any of several ratlike kangaroos of the genera Bettongia, Potorous, Aepyprymnus, etc, found on the Australian mainland and in Tasmania

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

rat kangaroo - any of several rabbit-sized ratlike Australian kangaroos

kangaroo rat

kangaroo - any of several herbivorous leaping marsupials of Australia and New Guinea having large powerful hind legs and a long thick tail

Potoroinae, subfamily Potoroinae - rat kangaroos

potoroo - Australian rat kangaroos

bettong - short-nosed rat kangaroo

jerboa kangaroo, kangaroo jerboa - brush-tailed rat kangaroo

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References in periodicals archive

But there's plenty going on here, as he reveals; for a start, white rhinos create essential nitrogen hotspots in Kenya, rat kangaroos control the Australian Outback's ecosystem, and fruit-eating maned wolves are crucial to the survival of Brazil's cerrado grassland.

BEST NATURE

Dr Daniel Blumstein of the University of California Los Angeles and the Marsupial CRC, Sydney, and his colleagues, have been studying the evolution of group-size effects in macropodids (kangaroos, wallabies and rat kangaroos).

Quokka defence. (journal extracts)

There are 47 different species of these animals, including gray and red kangaroos, wallaroos, wallabies, and rat kangaroos. Some "roos" are solitary, but others are found in small groups, or mobs, consisting of a large male called a buck or boomer, several females, and their joeys.

Australia's animals

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