Randy Danner, age 9, of Allentown, Pa., for his question:

Is there a marsupial cat?

Every marsupial spends his babyhood in his mama's fur lined pouch. Our sharp nosed, stringy tailed opossum is a marsupial. The kangaroo and the cuddly koala, the wombat and the wallaby also are marsupial animals that spend their babyhoods cradled in soft pouches.

There is no other animal like the opossum in all of the Americas. He is our only native marsupial, the only native New World animal that spends his babyhood in his mother’s pouch. But the opossum has many cousins and other close relatives on the other side of the globe. Most of the world's marsupial animals make their homes in Australia and Tasmania, New Zealand and New Guinea and other nearby islands.

The opposite side of the world is populated with a wide assortment of big and little marsupials. Some of these pouched animals look like rats and some like mice. There is a badger-type marsupial and another which looks and lives like a mole. There is a monkey-type marsupial, and the pouched koala is somewhat like a small bear. And there are assorted kangaroos that look only like kangaroos.

Marsupials feed mostly on vegetables, but there are a few meat eating marsupials that take the places of our cats and dogs. There is a hungry marsupial wolf that looks somewhat like a striped, collie-size tiger. And there is a gaily-spotted cat type marsupial, which feeds on marsupial rats and mice. He looks somewhat like a weasel. His silky coat may be tan or chocolate brown with white spots dotted along his back and sides and on his tail.

One marsupial cat of Tasmania and Southeast Australia is about as big as a house cat. His body may be a foot long, plus a foot of fluffy tail. In the same part of Australia he has a larger cousin known as the tiger cat. This toothy hunter has a body two feet long, plus one and a half feet of tail. Marsupial cats are clever hunters who do their prowling and pouncing by night. Their tiny babies are born naked and blind, and the helpless infants spend the first two months of their lives cuddled cozily inside the fur lined pouch on Mama's tummy.

At one time the marsupial cats were very unpopular in Tasmania and Australia. The furry night hunters often raided the chicken house, and many of them were shot. Then the ranchers became more sensible. They built strong fences to protect their poultry and learned to like the spotted cats. They saw that the little hunters are their friends because they devour so many hungry rats and mice.