Have you seen some mothers keep their children in cloth pouches fastened on to their back or stomach? Such cradle-pouches are handy when the mother has work to do with her hands. Some mammals have natural pouches attached to their bodies.
These mammals have pouches on their stomachs. Such animals are known as marsupials. These pouches are used for carrying marsupial babies. When a marsupial baby is born, it is not fully developed. It is blind, hairless, and very tiny. The baby crawls up the mother’s tummy to the pouch, where it immediately attaches itself to a nipple. Inside the pouch, the baby is safe and gets enough milk to drink. Marsupial babies stay in the pouch fora considerable amount of time, usually until they are capable of taking care of themselves.
Marsupials include such animals as kangaroos and opossums. A kangaroo baby, known as a joey, sometimes stays in its mother’s pouch until it is eight months old!
Picture credit: google
