A marsupial, usually with long hind legs used for hopping, short front legs, and a long stiff tail (held against the ground as a prop when stationary; held horizontally to counterbalance the weight of the front of the body when hopping); young (a joey) develops in a pouch on the mother's abdomen; large species tend to be called kangaroos, smaller species wallabies; inhabits grassland or woodland; some species climb trees. (Family: Macropodidae, 50 species.)
For other uses, see Kangaroo (disambiguation).| iKangaroos | ||||||||||||||||
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Female Eastern Grey Kangaroo with joey |
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Macropus rufus |
A kangaroo is any of several large macropods (the marsupial family that also includes the wallabies, tree-kangaroos, wallaroos, pademelons and the Quokka: 63 species in all). Kangaroos are endemic to the continent of Australia, while tree-kangaroos are found on both Australia and New Guinea.
Terminology
The word kangaroo derives from the Guugu Yimidhirr (an Australian Aboriginal language) word gangurru, referring to a grey kangaroo.
Kangaroo soon became adopted into standard English where it has come to mean any member of the family of kangaroos and wallabies. Male kangaroos are called bucks, boomers or jacks;
In addition, there are over 60 smaller macropods that are closely related to the kangaroos in the family Macropodidae.
Pre-historic kangaroo genera
Procoptodon Sthenurus "Strong Tail" Propleopus, carnivorous kangaroo during the pliocene and pleistocene periods (e.g. giant rat kangaroo) Simosthenurus, leaf-eating (browsing) kangaroosPhysical description
Kangaroos have long been regarded as strange animals.
Kangaroos have large, powerful hind legs, large feet adapted for leaping, a long muscular tail for balance, and a small head. Like all marsupials, kangaroos have a pouch called a marsupium in which their young complete their development after birth.
Kangaroos are the only large animals to use hopping as a means of locomotion. The comfortable hopping speed for Red Kangaroos is about 20–25 km/h (13–16 mph), but they can hop as fast as 70 km/h (43 mph) over short distances.
Unlike that of many other mammals, a kangaroo's scrotum (which the males have in place of a pouch ) is located far ahead of the penis, almost in the middle of the belly.
The average life expectancy of a kangaroo is about 9-18 years , with some living until they are about 28.
Diet
Kangaroos are large herbivores, feeding on grass and roots, and they chew cud.
Predators
Kangaroos have few natural predators. However, with the arrival of humans in Australia at least 50,000 years ago and introduction of the dingo about 5,000 years ago, kangaroos have had to adapt to introduced predators. Wedge-tailed Eagles are opportunistic predators who may prey upon juvenile kangaroos and will attack and sometimes kill a kangaroo (even an adult Red), but only when no more suitably-sized food is available. Wedge-tailed Eagles and other raptors usually eat already deceased kangaroos and can be found feeding on road-kill. Goannas and other carnivorous reptiles also pose a danger to the smaller kangaroo species when other food sources are lacking.
Along with dingoes and other canids, introduced species like foxes and feral cats also pose a threat to kangaroo populations, as they do most populations of native animals.
Courtship behavior in most species of kangaroos includes the male "checking" the female's cloaca. The males are often rejected by the females for their smaller size, but in the case of a larger kangaroo, the female may instead simply move away. The male kangaroo will sniff the urine multiple times until it is satisfied, then proceed to the mating cycle. Studies of Kangaroo reproduction conclude that this ritual is typical for a male kangaroo to check if the female kangaroo is receptive to the male. The male kangaroo may sometimes be found giving the female kangaroo a back rub before mating.
Adaptations
Kangaroos have developed a number of adaptations to a dry, infertile continent and a highly variable climate.
A female kangaroo is usually pregnant in permanence, except on the day she gives birth;
Kangaroos and wallabies have large, stretchy tendons in their hind legs which have evolved for leaping. This is true in all animal species which have muscles connected to their skeleton through elastic elements, like tendons, but the effect is more pronounced in kangaroos. Studies of kangaroos and wallabies have demonstrated that, beyond the minimum energy expenditure required to hop at all, increased speed requires very little extra effort (much less than the same speed increase in, say, a horse, a dog, or a human), and also that little extra energy is required to carry extra weight. For kangaroos, the key benefit of hopping is not speed to escape predators — the top speed of a kangaroo is no higher than that of a similarly-sized quadruped, and the Australian native predators are in any case less fearsome than those of other continents — the benefit is economy: in an infertile continent with highly variable weather patterns, the ability of a kangaroo to travel long distances at moderately high speed in search of fresh pastures is crucial.
A sequencing project of the Kangaroo genome was started in 2004 as a collaboration between Australia (mainly funded by the State of Victoria) and the NIH in the USA. The genome of a marsupial such as the kangaroo is of great interest to scientists studying comparative genomics because marsupials are at the right "distance" from humans: mice are too close and haven't developed many different functions, while birds are already too far away.
Kangaroo blindness
The eye disease is rare but not new among kangaroos. The following year, reports of blind kangaroos appeared in the southern states of Victoria (Australia) and south Australia. Veterinarians also discovered by screening the kangaroo population, that less than three percent of kangaroos exposed to the virus developed blindness.
Kangaroos and humans
Before white settlement, the kangaroo was a very important animal for Australian Aborigines, both for its meat, its hide, its bones and its sinews.
Unlike many of the smaller macropod species, kangaroos have fared well since European settlement. There are more, probably many more, kangaroos in Australia now than were present in 1788.
Kangaroos are shy and retiring by nature, and in normal circumstances present no threat to humans. Male kangaroos often "box" amongst each other, playfully, for dominance, or in competition for mates.
There are very few records of kangaroos attacking humans without provocation, however several such unprovoked attacks in 2004 spurred fears of a rabies-like disease possibly affecting the marsupials. The only reliably documented case of a fatality from a kangaroo attack was New South Wales, in 1936.
Kangaroo traffic sign
The "Kangaroo crossing" sign is to warn motorists to drive carefully and to watch out for kangaroos, because of the possibility of the presence of kangaroos in the area. The signs are placed based on the frequency of reported collisions — a collision between a car and kangaroo is capable of killing the kangaroo and damaging the car.
Kangaroos blinded by headlights or startled by engine noise have been known to leap in front of cars. Since kangaroos in mid-bound can reach speeds of ~50 km/h (31 mph) and are relatively heavy, the damage to vehicles can be severe, and, as already mentioned, it will also kill the kangaroo. Likewise, when an adult kangaroo is injured in a collision, a Veterinary Surgeon, or the RSPCA, or the National Parks and Wildlife Service should be consulted for instructions about what to do for the kangaroo. Usually wildlife sanctuaries are willing to adopt kangaroos which are no longer practical, or have grown too large to contain, needing at least 1 acre and 7ft boundary fences for a fully grown kangaroo.
Kangaroos and sport
Several Australian national representative sports teams have nicknames derived in one way or another from the kangaroo:
The Australian national rugby league team is nicknamed the "Kangaroos".Famous Kangaroos
The Kangaroo and Emu are standard bearers on the Australian Coat-of-Arms Skippy the Bush Kangaroo - the kangaroo star of an Australian television series Lulu, a pet Kangaroo who saved a farmer's life. , , Matilda, the mascot at the 1982 Commonwealth Games held in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, was represented by both a cartoon kangaroo and a 13-metre high (42 feet 8 inches) mechanical kangaroo (which winked at the spectators during the opening and closing ceremonies). The 'medal', which was worn by both the cartoon and mechanical versions of Matilda, features the 1982 Commonwealth Games logo — a stylized representation of a kangaroo in "flight" – similar to the pose of the kangaroo featured on the Australian pre-decimal half penny coin (shown at right). The Kangaroo was also featured on the Australian pre-decimal penny coin. The five Kangaroos are featured on the Australian One Dollar coin. The Kangaroo is the logo of Australia's national airliner Qantas. There is also a green and gold "Sporting Kangaroo", which is a Cricket version of the Boxing Kangaroo flag, featuring a Kangaroo batsman, with cricket bat and batting gloves. Kidding Kangaroo in the Sweet Pickles book series by Ruth Lerner Perle,Jacquelyn Reinach, and Richard Hefter Kasey Kangaroo is the mascot for the University of Missouri–Kansas City Zippy the kangaroo is the mascot for The University of Akron Lizzie (a purple and white kangaroo) is the mascot of Lake Washington High School in Kirkland, Washington Kangaroo Jack - the title character of an American film Kanga and Roo are fictional mother and son kangaroos in the popular series of children's books and cartoons about Winnie-the-Pooh Austin of the Backyardigans is a young Kangaroo Roger the boxing kangaroo from the Tekken series of videogames.
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