American Scientist

To the Editors:

In the article The Elusive Dingo (September-October, 2020) author Pat Shipman writes: “The only placental mammals on the continent were humans, bats that presumably had flown there, and perhaps rats that had fled explorers’ ships. Every indigenous Australian mammal was a marsupial and raised its young in a pouch.”

In fact, Australia has a very rich and exotic collection of indigenous rodents that long predate European colonization, and the Australian mammalian fauna includes some much loved egg-layers that have use for neither a placenta or a pouch.

Richard Gogerly
Melbourne, Australia 

Editors’ note: The online version of the article has been updated to more accurately describe the variety of indigenous Australian mammals.