The early development of the eye of the pouch-young of the marsupial Dasyurus hallucatus

Abstract

The development of the eye of the pouch-young of the marsupial native cat Dasyurus hallucatus from birth to day 30 is described. Following the staging system used by other authors, the stage of development of the eye at birth is comparable to that of a six-week human embryo, a 33 day rhesus embryo or a 14 day rat embryo. In contrast to eutherian mammals where development progresses from one stage to another at approximately the same rate, in the native cat the rate tends to progressively decrease. All of the neural development of the native cat eye occurs while the young is in the pouch.