bandicoot

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun Any of several large rats of the genera Bandicota and Nesokia of Asia and the Middle East, which inhabit cultivated lands and are destructive to crops.
• noun Any of several nocturnal marsupials of the family Peramelidae, of New Guinea, Australia, and adjacent islands, which feed on insects and plants and have a long, tapering snout and a pouch that opens toward the rear.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The Anglo-Indian name of the Mus giganteus of Hard-wicke, a large Indian rat, upward of 2 feet long including the tail, and weighing 2 or 3 pounds.
• noun The Anglo-Australian name of any marsupial animal of the family Peramelidæ. Also called bandicoot rat.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun A species of very large rat (Mus giganteus), found in India and Ceylon. It does much injury to rice fields and gardens.
• noun A ratlike marsupial animal (genus Perameles) of several species, found in Australia and Tasmania.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun Small Australian marsupial, of the family Peramelidae with a distinctive long snout.
• noun Any of several ratlike marsupial of the genera Bandicota and Nesokia of southeast Asia.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun any of various agile ratlike terrestrial marsupials of Australia and adjacent islands; insectivorous and herbivorous