Living in Western Australia - Where Kangaroos Live
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WHAT MAKES A KANGAROO A KANGAROO?
-- Strong back limbs
-- Long back feet
-- Ability to hop (most species)
-- Inability to walk backwards
-- Lack of thumb
-- Powerful and long, clawed fourth toe, which does much of the work in completing the push of a hop
-- Tail that helps with balance during fast hopping--and can function as a fifth leg during the animal's slow-speed gait, helping to stabilize the back end of the body while back limbs are in the air (most species)
-- Mostly vegetarian diet
-- Marsupial pouch for young
-- Ability in adult females to be constantly pregnant and constantly lactating from first pregnancy until death (most species)
STORY OF THE POUCH, 101
A newborn kangaroo is even more helpless than a human infant. Blind and the size of a honeybee, the newborn joey is essentially a fetus, still enclosed in a baglike amnion. The tiny creature bursts out of the amnion and immediately "swims" through its mother's fur to reach the pouch. In just three minutes, it disappears over the lip of the pouch. To find its way, the joey uses its sense of smell and built-in gravity receptors (located in the middle ear)--the only two senses that are functional at this point.
When it finds a nipple, the joey latches on and stays physically fused for four to five weeks. Usually the newborn is alone; twins are extremely rare in most macropods. But while a newborn is attached, an older sibling that has left the pouch and is not yet weaned may poke its head in to feed. Each of the offspring feeds only from its own individual teat, and the two teats each supply different mixes of nutrients depending on the age of the young.
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