NewsAnimalsMole or marsupial? This subterranean critter with a backward pouch is bothGenetics finally reveal where this enigmatic animal belongs on the family tree This Australian mole, shown eating a centipede, may look like South Africas golden mole but it is more closely related to kangaroos than to the other moles of the world.Mike Gillam/Auscape/Minden PicturesBy Susan Milius33 seconds agoEvolving a dig-in-the-dark mole lifestyle comes with radical anatomical changes, making it hard even to guess the animals closest relatives. Thats why the true identity of Australias most enigmatic and cryptic mammal, the marsupial mole, has been called into question for decades.The two fit-in-your-hand Notoryctes species are elusive. Ive never handled, or even seen, a marsupial mole in my life, and I almost certainly never will, says Stephen Frankenberg, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Melbourne in Australia. Sightings are rare. Even in Australia, he says, plenty of people have probably never even heard of them.