Kenguru

~ Blood Pheasant.

~ Photo by 👉🏻 📸: Luci Lopez.

The neck of the kangaroo is thin, the chest is narrow, the front legs seem to be underdeveloped, while the jumping legs are very strong and massive.

Thick at the base and tapering to the end, the tail of the kangaroo serves as a balancer when jumping, and in large individuals it is the support of the body during fights and sitting. It does not perform a grasping function. The length of the kangaroo's tail varies from 14.2 to 107 cm, depending on the species. The tail of filanders is shorter and thicker, and also less pubescent than that of wallabies.

The lower jaw of the kangaroo has a peculiar structure, its posterior ends are bent inwards. In total, animals have 32 or 34 teeth that do not have roots and are adapted to feeding on coarse plant foods:

one wide, forward-pointing incisor on each half of the lower jaw;
small blunted canines reduced in some species;
4 pairs of molars, alternating as they abrasion and equipped with blunt tubercles. When the last teeth wear out, the animal begins to starve.

Meteora, Greece
Photo by: .21 [IG]

Large kangaroos are very interesting animals, which are difficult not to recognize. Their head is small, with large ears and large almond-shaped eyes. The eyes are framed by long dense eyelashes that reliably protect the cornea from dust. The nose of the animals is black and naked.

Usually male kangaroos are much larger in size than females. The growth of females stops soon after the start of reproduction, and males continue to grow, as a result of which old individuals are much larger than young ones. A female gray or red kangaroo weighing 15–20 kg, participating in reproduction for the first time, can be cared for by a male who is 5–6 times larger than her. Sexual dimorphism is most pronounced in large species. In contrast, in small wallabies, adults of different sexes have similar sizes.

Aerial View of Sydney, Australia❤
Photo by: [IG]

The length of the body of the striped wallaby hare (Latin Lagostrophus fasciatus) is 40-45 cm, the tail length is 35-40 cm, and the mammal weighs from 1.3 to 2.1 kg.

Quokki (Latin Setonix brachyurus) have a total body size with a tail of 65 cm to 1.2 m. Their weight is less: females weigh from 1.6 kg, and the weight of males does not exceed 4.2 kg.

For example, the body length of a mini-kangaroo, a red-necked filander (Latin Thylogale thetis), reaches only 29-63 cm. At the same time, the tail of the animal grows to 27-51 cm. The average weight of females is 3.8 kg, males - 7 kg.

The smallest members of the Kangaroo family are phylanders, the striped wallaby hare and the short-tailed kangaroo (quokka).

In second place is the giant red kangaroo (Latin Macropus rufus) with a body size excluding the tail up to 1.65 m. However, the giant redhead loses by weight. Its maximum weight is 85 kg, while the eastern gray kangaroo weighs 95 kg.

The Kangaroo family has 11 genera and 62 species. The maximum length recorded in the eastern gray kangaroo (Latin Macropus giganteus): it is 3 meters.

The generally accepted name "giant kangaroos" can be equally attributed to both real kangaroos and vallar, since their growth is also high.

In a broad sense, the term "kangaroos" is used in relation to the entire kangaroo family, and in a narrow sense it is used only in relation to large, real, or giant representatives of this taxon, the foot of the hind legs of which is longer than 25 cm.

Interpretations (etymologies) of words are scientific and folk, and very often they do not coincide. The case of the origin of the name kangaroo is one of the most characteristic such examples.

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