Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 3, 2014

The tammar wallaby is a small macropod native to South and Western Australia. Though its geographical range has been severely reduced since European colonisation, the tammar is common within its reduced range and is listed as of Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It has been introduced to New Zealand and reintroduced to some areas of Australia where it had been previously eradicated. Skull differences distinguish tammars from Western Australia, Kangaroo Island and mainland South Australia, making them distinct populations groups or possibly different subspecies. Around the size of a rabbit, the tammar is among the smallest of the wallabies. Its coat is largely grey. It has colour vision, can drink seawater, and can hop efficiently using tendons that act like springs. A nocturnal species, it spends nighttime in grassland habitat and daytime in shrub. It is very gregarious and has a seasonal, promiscuous mating pattern. A female tammar can nurse a joey in her pouch while keeping an embryo in her uterus. The tammar is a model species for research on marsupials, and on mammals in general. It is one of many organisms whose genome has been sequenced. (Full article...)

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