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Australian Land Animals
Kangaroo
There are many types of Kangaroos, but the two most commonly known are the Red and Grey kangaroos. Kangaroos belong to a group of marsupials called macropods, which means 'great footed animals'. All macropods have strong back legs with long feet. They hop on their back legs when travelling, using the tail as a balance. Their front legs are small.
Kangaroos live in groups of ten or more called mobs. Mobs can number over 50. They feed at night on grass and other low growing plants. They drink water when they find it, but can go for long periods of time without drinking. They rest in the day.
Kangaroos weigh less than 2 grams when they are born. The tiny baby, called a joey, climbs up its mother's belly and into her pouch. The mother can't touch it because it is so tiny. She licks a path in her fur for it to travel along. Inside the pouch it grabs onto one of four teats and remains attached to it for about nine months.
Milk is automatically fed to the joey, and the milk changes according to the joey's needs as it grows until it no longer needs milk.
At nine months the joey will start to leave the pouch for increasing periods of time, returning always to the same teat for a feed until it is weaned.
The red kangaroo is the biggest of all the marsupials. A male can be 1.5 metres long with a 1 metre long tail. It can weigh 85 kilograms. Females are smaller. Males are a reddish colour, but the females are a grey colour. Red kangaroos are found mostly in the centre of Australia, where it is hot and there is little rainfall. It is flat, open country with scattered trees.
The grey kangaroo is found along most of the eastern half of Australia. Grey kangaroos are almost as big as red kangaroos, but are a greyish brown colour. There are Eastern Grey and Western Grey kangaroos.
In drought, large mobs move into farmlands and parks, even golf courses to find food. This often puts them into conflict with humans.
In tropical areas of Australia and Papua New Guinea there are kangaroos that live in trees. They are tree kangaroos. Their long floppy tails are still used for balance, but help them balance as they move about from branch to branch. They are the only kangaroos that have front paws that can be raised above their heads, which helps them move about in trees. Their front paws are more flexible than those of terrestrial (ground-living) kangaroos, and they can hold food to their mouths with them.
Related weblinks -
• Find out more about kangaroos here -
http://www.nwf.org/internationalwildlife/kangaroo.html
• This is a great site with all you need to know about kangaroos -
http://www.australianwildlife.com.au/features/kangaroo.htm