Bandicoots are considered transitional animals from predatory to herbivorous marsupials. These are mainly insectivorous and carnivorous animals, but some species eat mixed food. As a rule, bandicoots feed on insects and their larvae, as well as spiders. Sometimes they manage to catch a small rodent.
Bandicoots also consume seeds, berries, buds and shoots of plants, eat mushrooms. In arid regions, these animals are content with moisture contained in food, and lick the morning dew from the leaves. Species that live in the jungle are regularly drunk from puddles and streams. Observation of the bandicoots showed that during the night these animals bypass all of its territory, but it was not noticed that they went beyond it. Bandicoots usually look for food on the ground. In search of insects and roots with their strong paws, they dig in the ground pit.
Bandicoots sleep very tightly. When hunting for them was not yet banned, the hunters easily opened their nests and caught animals with their hands.
Long-nosed bandicoots are the only of all marsupials that have rudiments of allantoid placentation.
Sometimes males bandicoots resort to fights. They dig into each other’s teeth and spin or jump high, trying to injure the enemy with powerful claws of the hind limbs.
During prolonged rains, short-legged bandicoots build clay walls around their holes so that water does not enter their house.
In bandicoots, the shortest pregnancy among mammals is 12.5 days.
