dunnart

/ ˈdʌnɑːt /

noun

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of dunnart¹

C20: from a native Australian language

Example Sentences

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

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

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

Turning a dunnart into a thylacine, Helgen says, would be the equivalent of editing a dog’s genome until the resulting animal looked like a cat.

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