To understand Roger secret, check our new study with @anjgoswami @bertieportela @vinfernand @Eve_Noirault where we are investigating how differences in reproductive strategies in mammals have influence the morphological evolution? https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2021.0319#.YIkMKCGGLEQ.twitter

Differences in reproductive strategies are divided across the different clade of mammals. Monotremes and Marsupials give birth to underdeveloped newborns and have a low diversity whereas placentals give birth to more developed newborns and are displaying a great diversity.

In this study, we investigate whether differences in the mode of reproduction and developmental timing can foster or constrain the morphological evolution in mammals mainly focusing on marsupials and placentals.

To tackle this question, we generated a comprehensive 3D morphometric dataset to quantify jaw shape for over 150 living and extinct species of mammals representing both metatherians (marsupials+extinct relatives) and eutherians (placentals+extinct relatives).

The jaw is an ideal structure to test these hypotheses because it is used extensively and exclusively for suckling during the extended period of post-natal development in all marsupials.

We show that metatherian jaws evolve at significantly slower rates and have achieved markedly less disparity than observed in eutherians.

Interestingly, although both groups display the same range of terrestrial ecological diversity, we show that metatherians overlap entirely with eutherians in jaw morphology, but occupy a much smaller region and never invade some areas of the eutherian jaw morphospace.

Moreover, jaw shape does not differentiate between eutherians and metatherians, reflecting this overlap, as well as significant convergence driven by similarity in diet or similar biomechanical requirements.

Our study provide important new understanding of the impact of developmental strategy on the evolution of morphological diversity, and the evolution of the jaw in mammals.

To conclude, despite the ecomorphological diversity of Roger and his marsupial friends, the evolution of their jaw appears to be strongly constrained by their specialized reproductive biology.

If you want to learn more about Roger https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-46503284

And last but not least!!! All the meshes are available on Phenome10K
https://www.phenome10k.org/publication/functional-constraints-during-development-limit-jaw-shape-evolution-in-marsupials