May 15th: International Kangaroo Care Awareness Day

It's International Kangaroo Care Awareness Day, so here are some facts to boost your awareness about kangaroos.

1. Kangaroos are the largest marsupials on Earth. They can grow to up to 2 metres tall.
2. They belong to the macropod family, which means ‘big foot’. The word "Kangaroo" comes from the Guugu Yimithirr language. The word "gangurru" is not, as a popular myth states, the word for "I don't understand", given in reply to a European asking an Aborigine "What's that animal over there?" It's actually the Guugu Yimithirr word for a grey kangaroo. More kangaroo related words: a male kangaroo is called a buck, boomer or jack; a female is called a doe, flyer or jill; and a baby kangaroo is called a joey. A group of kangaroos is known as a mob, a troop or a court.
3. Kangaroos get around by hopping. They are the only large animals to do this. It's actually more energy efficient than running at speeds of over 18mph. They can reach a top speed of over 65km/h, and can hop as high as 3 metres and as far as 7 metres. They cannot, in fact, move their hind legs independently, unless they are in Water, when they can do so in order to swim. Nor can they walk backwards, which is one reason for putting them on the Australian coat of arms, to signify that Australia is a country that only moves forwards.
4. Kangaroos don’t sweat. To cool themselves down, they lick their front paws and rub the moisture onto their chests.
5. Female kangaroos are virtually always pregnant. They have a lot of control over their pregnancies - they can choose the sex of their offspring and delay or pause a pregnancy when conditions aren't ideal for raising young. They can have as many as three offspring on the go at any one time - an older one largely living outside the pouch, a young one attached to a teat, and a developing embryo. In this situation the mother produces two different types of milk for the older and younger joeys.
6. Joeys are born before they are fully developed. At birth they look like tiny Pink worms about the size of a Jelly bean. It is less than an inch long and weighs less than two grams. It climbs from the birth canal to the pouch, where it completes its development.
7. Kangaroos are herbivores and eat mainly grass. Like cattle, they regurgitate partly digested grass and chew cud. They also have stomachs with chambers like cattle and sheep. Scientists have noticed, though, that unlike cattle, they don't produce copious amounts of methane. Scientists are looking into whether it's possible to transfer the bacteria that converts the by-products of the kangaroos digestion into an energy producing chemical instead of methane, into Cows to reduce greenhouse gas production.
8. You may think kangaroos only live in Australia, but this isn't the case. There is a type of kangaroo native to Papua New Guinea that lives in trees, and there are communities of feral kangaroos living in America, France and even the UK. These are the descendants of kangaroos which escaped from zoos.
9. Kangaroos fight. They fight over females and both sexes will fight over access to drinking water. These fights are usually short. Males will sometimes start fights with each other for no apparent reason while they are grazing or grooming each other. These fights are longer and more ritualised, and a kangaroo can decline a challenge. These fights are thought to be ways of establishing a dominance hierarchy.
10. People of a certain age will remember Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. A real life equivalent was Lulu, an orphaned joey who was reared by a farmer and his family. When the farmer was knocked unconscious and trapped by a fallen tree, Lulu stayed with him and barked to alert his family so they could come and rescue him. Lulu received an animal valour award for that. Not all kangaroos are friendly, though. They can be downright dangerous. in fact, more people are killed by kangaroos than Sharks in Australia. They have been known to attack Dogs, and even try to drown people. Drowning is a common defence they use against predators; and humans are predators since it's legal to eat kangaroo meat.

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