Conservation of Lapping Mechanism in Marsupials

The oral behavior of drinking includes interactions between the tongue, jaw, and liquid being ingested to provide hydration to the animal. Different mechanisms may be used to ingest liquid such as lapping, licking, or sucking. The objective of the study was to compare the mechanism of lapping across marsupial species through comparison of the length of gape cycle, and the amplitude of jaw pitch and tongue protraction between the two marsupial species, Didelphis virginiana and Monodelphis domestica. I hypothesized that there would be no differences in any of the variables for the lapping mechanism between species. Previous work demonstrates that carnivorans have a conservation of the lapping mechanism between species, which led to the basis of my hypothesis that I believe marsupials will lap in a similar manner to each other as well. The results show that each of the variables, when compared between species, did not have statistically significant differences, which suggests that the lapping mechanism between marsupials may also be conserved