Body length 25–75 cm, tail 20–60 cm; weight ranges from 900 g ( Dasyurus hallucatus ) to 4-7 kg ( Dasyurus maculatus ). Females are smaller. The coat on the body is usually short, thick and soft; tail covered with longer hair. Ears are relatively small. Coloring on the back and sides from gray-yellow to black with numerous white spots; on the belly - white, gray or yellow. Females have 6–8 nipples. The brood pouch develops only during the breeding season and opens back to the tail; for the rest of the time, it is represented by skin folds, limiting the milky field in front and laterally. Well developed canines and molars.
6 species of this genus are common in Australia , Tasmania and Papua New Guinea . They inhabit both forests and open plains. Lifestyles are mostly terrestrial, but they climb trees and rocks well. Active at night, rare during the day. Asylum during the day serves as a gap among the stones, caves, hollows of fallen trees, where the spotted marsupials marry dry grass and bark.
Carnivores feed on small mammals (the size of a rabbit ), birds, reptiles , amphibians , fish, mollusks, freshwater crustaceans and insects; Carrion and fruit are also eaten. After the colonization of Australia, they began to hunt introduced species; on the one hand, spotted marsupials marten cause some harm, ruining the hen houses (one of the reasons for their decline was the extermination of them by farmers), on the other hand, they are useful animals that destroy insect pests, rats, mice and rabbits.
Outside the breeding season are solitary. They breed once a year, in the Australian winter - from May to July. Pregnancy lasts 16-24 days. There are 2-8 cubs in the litter, although it happens to 24-30. The number of spotted marsupial martens in Australia has greatly decreased due to the epizootics of the beginning of the 20th century , habitat destruction, extermination by humans and food competition with introduced predators (cats, dogs, foxes), but they are still quite numerous in Tasmania and in New Guinea . All Australian species are listed in the International Red Book .
