Red Kangaroo
RED KANGAROO
SIANTIFIC NAME:OSPHRANTER RUFUS
The Red Kangaroo is an amazing creature. For starters everyone knows their jumping abilities. A full grown human can’t even jump about as high as a joey (baby kangaroo), people can jump about 1 ft into the air while joeys can 6-10 ft high in a a single bound!
Adult females are actually a blue gray color while the males are more of the red brown color. When a female roo gives birth the newborn wiggles into mom’s pouch and she feeds them, they will drink milk and grow up in mom’s pouch. As the joey gets older they will start to explore outside the pouch, but will still come inside for protection and milk. Months later the joey is almost independent, but still drinks milk at this point mom has given birth to a new joey, a cool thing about kangaroo females is once they have two different age joeys they produce two different types of milk, one gland can produce a fluid rich in protein for a neonate and the other “mature” milk for a younger one.
When joeys start to leave the pouch they explore the outdoors and they play fight. Females usually stay with the mob (kangaroo family), and males battle other males to become the new dominant male.
A kangaroo also have great balancing abilities, they have to be able to balance on their tails for kickboxing matches. When a male challenges another roo for kickboxing they size etch other up and scratch each their chests that says I’m strong . If no one backs down, they stand on their tails and grab their opponents then both roos kick their opponent in the chest. If still no one backs down it can lead to serious injuries. Males fight for dominance, when a roo is the dominant male not only he gets all the pride he has the job to protect the mob (group of roos) from other mobs and predators. Females will sometimes fight to tell others to leave them alone.
LOCATION: Australia
HEIGHT: Up to 4 ½ ft (1.4 )
DIET: Mostly grass
Photo credit: Josh More
