World Travel 4 Indians

Kangaroo in Australia

One of the greatest wonders of nature is Kangaroo. It is the most unique creature of nature. You will find kangaroo in many places in the world.

The animal belongs to the marsupial family of Macropodidae. There are almost 63 species of animals in this family.

Some other members of the same family except kangaroo are tree-kangaroos, wallabies, wallaroos, Quokka, pademelons and so on. The scientific name of this wonderful pouched animal is Macropus giganteus.

Kangaroos can be found mainly in he countries like Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea and many other places.

However, Australia is the most famous among these. Australia is home different species of kangaroos.

Kangaroos in Australia are regarded as one of the grass eaters. Antelope, zebra, deer, bison etc also fall in the same category in Australia.

Kangaroos, and their close relatives, vary greatly in size, ranging in weight from 500 grams to 90 kilograms.

There are at least 69 different types (called species) of kangaroo. These species are found naturally in the wild only in Australia and New Guinea, although feral populations of some species have been introduced in New Zealand, Great Britain and Hawaii.

Recently, scientists have separated these species into two families (the Macropodidae and the Potoroidae) which together form a super-family known as the Macropodoidea (or macropods).

The family Macropodidae includes kangaroos, wallabies, wallaroos, pademelons, tree-kangaroos and the forest wallabies of New Guinea.

The family Potoroidae is made up of potoroos, rat-kangaroos and bettongs which are only found in Australia.

The best-known macropods are kangaroos, which is why the word 'kangaroo' is often used to describe any of the members of this family.

We use 'kangaroos' in this text whenever these animals are being discussed in general.

Kangaroos can be of various sizes. There are some kangaroos that are very smalls and some of them are on the other hand very large like human beings.

The big kangaroos have very long back lags and that is why they can run very fast, almost 88 kilometers per hour. They are also capable of jumping very high (9 meters at a time).

Kangaroo is a herbivorous animal. It does not eat anything except plants. Sometimes it also eats fungi.

Some of the kangaroos are nocturnal and some are not. However, they are not very active during the daytime.

Potoroid is a species of kangaroo, which live in specific nests that they themselves make. On the other hand the tree-kangaroos live in the trees.