Trivia Bit: The name for the Australian
marsupial Kangaroo came about when some
of the first white
settlers saw
this strange animal hopping along
and they asked the Aborigines
what it was called. They
replied with 'Kanguru',
which in their language means 'I don't know'.
The monarch of the great dry inland of Australia,
the Red Kangaroo is the largest living marsupial,
the male growing to about two meters tall.
When pursued, kangaroos travel fast, and young males have
been paced with motor vehicles at about 62 kilometers per hour.
However they tend to tire quickly.
Kangaroos have been known to jump over high obstacles
and have little difficulty clearing fences of 1.2 meters or higher.
When traveling leisurely, the kangaroo hops
about 1.2 to 1.5 meters,
but at speed the bound can increase to three meters.
The spring for the hop comes from the big muscles
in the thigh, the tail acting only as a balancer.
Red Kangaroos are mainly nocturnal, tending to avoid
feeding and moving around during the heat of day,
but in cool weather, this activity may continue
during the day.
They are gregarious animals, groups ranging from three
or four, to mobs of more than 100.
~~~~~~~~~~
When the baby of the Red Kangaroo is born,
it is only about 18 millimeters long
and weighs 3/4 gram, about 1/30,000 of its mother's weight.
For its size, the baby's forelegs are very
well developed, and it uses them to help it climb
to the mother's pouch.
Blind and completely unaided, the young roo makes
the journey to its new home in an average of 3 minutes.
The mother is completely oblivious to the baby's existence !
Inside the pouch, the baby selects one of four
teats, attaches itself to it, and begins suckling.
For the first 40 days of its life, the baby is
attached to the teat permanently.
When it is about 150 days old, the baby,
known as a "joey", first pokes its head out of the pouch,
and begins to nibble grass, and 40 to 50 days
later, begins to make short journeys away from the mother.
At about 235 days old, it leaves the pouch permanently, but is
not fully weaned till it is about one year old.
Only a day or two after the tiny baby first clawed
its way into the pouch, the mother usually mates again.
The embryo from this mating, which is only a quarter
of a millimeter in diameter, goes into a dormant
phase while the young is suckled in the pouch.
If the joey in the pouch is lost in any way,
this embryo resumes development.
Otherwise, it remains dormant until the joey in the pouch
is about 200 days old, then it resumes development
so that it is born within a day of the joey leaving
its mother's pouch permanently.
The mother roo then produces milk of two compositions--
one for the tiny baby in the pouch, and one for the joey
which has left the pouch, but is not weaned fully.
