Marsupial moles are a family (
Notoryctidae) of
cladotherian mammals of the order Notoryctemorphia. They are rare and poorly understood burrowing
mammals of the
deserts of
Western Australia, with an ancestry going back 20 million years or so. Once classified as
monotremes, they are now thought to be
marsupials. Their precise classification was for long a matter for argument, but there are considered to be only two extant species: