dunnart

British  

/ ˈdʌnɑːt /

noun

1. a mouselike insectivorous marsupial of the genus Sminthopsis of Australia and New Guinea

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Etymology

Origin of dunnart

C20: from a native Australian language

Example Sentences

Once they’ve fine-tuned the recipe, they’ll be able to use the stem cells to create a gene-edited living embryo they can insert into either a dunnart mother or an artificial marsupial womb, which they would have to invent.

From Scientific American

Next the researchers will compare the genome of the thylacine to that of one of its closest living relatives: the fat-tailed dunnart, a mouse-sized marsupial that is relatively abundant and copes well in captivity.

From Scientific American

The researchers have already figured out how to re-program dunnart skin cells into stem calls, and are currently testing them to see whether they’re capable of generating an entire embryo—something that hasn’t yet been done in marsupials, which develop differently from placental mammals such as humans and mice.

From Scientific American

And like other newborn marsupials, the baby thylacines would be little larger than a grain of rice, so even a diminutive dunnart mother could nourish them in her pouch at first.

From Scientific American

Mammal expert Kris Helgen of the Australian Museum, who worked on sequencing the thylacine’s mitochondrial genome in 2009, thinks altering the dunnart’s DNA to truly resemble a thylacine’s will be an impossible feat.

From Scientific American