The Kangaroo is a marsupial from Australia's diverse wilderness. Coming from the family Macropodidae. The kangaroo comes in different sizes, but the most widely known is the Red Kangaroo. Others of the larger breeds include the Eastern Grey Kangaroo, Antilopine Kangaroo, and the Western Grey Kangaroo. The smaller varieties are found in both Australia and New Guinea.
The many species of kangaroo, more specificly the smaller variety, have had difficulites with human influence on their landscape, Kangaroos on a whole are thriving well. With very few natural predators in existence, Kangaroos have been able to keep their numbers up. Old predators such as the Thylacine are now extinct, as well as others including the Marsupial Lion. Now only faced with humans and the introduction of wild dingos, Kangaroos have adapted to recognize those kinds of dangers.
Kangaroo life cycle strangely enough are to similar to that of opossums.The egg descends from the ovary into the uterus.There it is fertilised and quickly develops into a neonate. The neonate emerges after only 33 days. Usually only one young is born at a time. It is blind, hairless and only a few centimeters long; its hind legs are mere stumps; it instead uses its more developed forelegs to climb its way through the thick fur on its mother's abdomen into the pouch, which takes about three to five minutes. Once in the pouch, it fastens onto one of the two teats and starts to feed. Almost immediately, the mother's sexual cycle starts again. Another egg descends into the uterus and she becomes sexually receptive. Then, if she mates and a second egg is fertilised, its development is temporarily halted. Meanwhile, the neonate in the pouch grows rapidly. After 190 days, the baby (called a joey) is sufficiently large and developed to make its full emergence out of the pouch, after sticking its head out for a few weeks until it eventually feels safe enough to fully emerge. From then on it spends increasing time in the outside world and eventually, after 235 days, it leaves the pouch for the last time.
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