Iconic Red Kangaroo

All Creatures Podcast

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First released in 2020, we are going back to this oldie, the Red Kangaroo! Was such a fun episode and we learned so much!

**We also learned that Aussies do eat Kangaroo, so please excuse our American ignorance!!** But so much to love with this species.

Red Kangaroo History

The term ‘kangaroo’ comes from the Aboriginal word “gangarru”, from the Guugu Yimithirr language, which is spoken in far north Queensland. Kangaroos are marsupials, whose evolution dates back nearly 125 million years. Marsupials first arrived in Australia around 70 million years ago. Australian marsupials evolved in many ways to meet the challenges of drier habitats over the last 15 million years. Teeth, for example, reflect adaptive changes from browsing (on woody vegetation in moist climates) to grazing (on grasses in arid climates). Kangaroo ancestors were quadrupedal (walking on four legs most of the time) in forested habitats and became progressively more bipedal as habitats dried out and opened up.

An example of an early kangaroo can be found in the rainforests of Queensland. There lives the tiny clambering musky rat-kangaroo, weighing not much more than half a kilogram. This species is a living fossil, having been around for tens of millions of years. There are over 60 species of Kangaroos that belong to the Family of Macropodidae (Macropods- large foot). These can be broken down into:

• Wallabies- smaller of the typical “kangaroo”
• Wallaroos- size in between wallabies and kangaroos
• Tree Kangaroos- smaller tree-dwelling kangaroos
• Kangaroos- largest of all the species and considered the “true” kangaroo

Red Kangaroos range over most of Australia in the semi-arid plains, grasslands, woodlands and open forests.

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