Hopping Champion

ONE of Australia’s best-known animals is the kangaroo. It is a marsupial (it rears its young in a pouch). It has a deer-like head, a pointed snout and large, upright ears.

It can hop on its strong hind legs at a speed of 64 km per hour, the distance covered per hop being around 7.5 m. As it hops, it stretches out its powerful tail horizontally at the back for balance. A good jumper, it can easily leap over obstacles that are 1.8 m high.

The main food of the kangaroo is grass and shrubs. It goes on all fours when it is time to eat.

Basically the kangaroo is a quiet and inoffensive animal. But it can fight back strongly if necessary. It is known to drown dingoes (Australia’s wild dogs) by seizing the animal in its front paws and holding it under water.

At birth, a baby kangaroo is hardly 2.5 cm long. It immediately crawls into its mother’s pouch where it lives on her milk alone for the next ten months.

There are at least 50 species of kangaroo, the largest being the 2 m long red kangaroo and the smallest, the musky rat-kangaroo, which is barely 21 to 34 cm long.

Tree Kangaroos

Kangaroos once lived on tree-tops. There are still seven species of tree kangaroos. They live in the forests of New Guinea and Northern Queensland. One species called the ‘boongary’ walks on trees, moving each foot independently. This is something no ordinary hopping kangaroo can do. The boongary has a long tail, which it uses as a rudder for steering as it leaps between trees and also as a prop to help it to balance. Tall as a Giant

The procoptodon, a species of kangaroo that lived millions of years ago, was over 3 m tall. It browsed among the tree-tops.

Keeping Cool

Kangaroos living in the Australian desert pant to make saliva, which they rub over their faces and body to keep cool.

Multipurpose Feet

Kangaroos use their feet to the nail on the four th toe of fighting.

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