Kangaroo

Kangaroo

A kangaroo is an animal found only in Australia, although it has a smaller relative, called a wallaby, which lives on the Australian island of tasmania and also in new guinea. Kangaroos eat grass and plants. They have short front legs, but very long and very strong back legs and have been known to make forward jumps of over eight metres, and leap across fences more than three metres per hour. Kangaroo are marsupials, this means that the female kangaroo has an external pouch on the front of her body. A baby kangaro is very ting when it is born, and it crawls at once into this pouch where it spends its first five months of life. There are four species that are commonly referred to as kangaroos. The largest kangaroos are the great grey kangaroo and the red kangaroo.

-          The red kangaroo (macropus rafus) is the largest surviving marsupial anywhere in the world. Fewer in number, the red kangaroo occupies the arid and semi – arid centre of the country. A large male can be 2 metres tall and weigh 90 kg.

-          The eastern grey kangaroo (macropus giganteus) is less well known that the red (outside of Australia), but the most often seen, as it’s range covers the fertile eastern part of the country.

-          The western grey kangaroo (macropus fuliginosus) is slightly smaller again at about 54 kg for a large male. It is found in the southern part of western Australia, south Australia near the coast and the darling river basin.

-          Kangaroo is an unofficial symbol of Australia and appears as an emblem on the Australian wat of arms on some of it’s currency, and is used by some of Australia’s well known organisations, including wantas and the royal Australian Air Force.