A pair of researchers, one with the UK's Natural History Museum, the other a King Island historian, has found an almost complete extinct dwarf emu egg on King Island. In their paper published in the journal Biology Letters, ...
(PhysOrg.com) -- A BBC expedition exploring inside the crater of an extinct volcano in Papua New Guinea (PNG) has discovered a lost world of dozens of weird new species and rare animals, including new frogs, a giant rat, ...
Kangaroos prefer to use one of their hands over the other for everyday tasks in much the same way that humans do, with one notable difference: generally speaking, kangaroos are lefties. The finding, reported in the Cell Press ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 18, 2015
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The evolution of kangaroos is intricately tied to Australia's changing climate, according to new research.
Plants & Animals
Aug 4, 2010
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A pair of researchers at Flinders University has found evidence that suggests modern kangaroos diversified due to grassland expansion, not drying during the Miocene, as previous studies have shown. In their paper published ...
South Australian Museum and University of Adelaide scientists working on fossils from Kangaroo Island, South Australia, have found eyes belonging to a giant 500 million-year-old marine predator that sat at the top of the ...
Archaeology
Dec 7, 2011
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0
Australian scientists Thursday unveiled the biggest-ever graveyard of an ancient rhino-sized mega-wombat called diprotodon, with the site potentially holding valuable clues on the species' extinction.
Archaeology
Jun 21, 2012
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Feeding is paramount to the survival of almost every animal, and just about every living organism is eaten by another. Not surprisingly, the animal kingdom shows many examples of extreme specialization - the chameleon's tongue, ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 13, 2017
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97
Fossils of a giant new species from the long-extinct group of sea creatures called trilobites have been found on Kangaroo Island, South Australia.
Paleontology & Fossils
Jun 13, 2019
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633
A giant kangaroo that once roamed on four legs through remote forests in the Papua New Guinea Highlands may have survived as recently as 20,000 years ago—long after large-bodied megafauna on mainland Australia went extinct, ...
Ecology
Oct 7, 2022
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A kangaroo (/keɪŋɡəruː/) is a marsupial from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning 'large foot'). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, especially those of the genus Macropus, Red Kangaroo, Antilopine Kangaroo, Eastern Grey Kangaroo and Western Grey Kangaroo. Kangaroos are endemic to the country of Australia. The smaller macropods are found in Australia and New Guinea.
Kangaroos have large, powerful hind legs, large feet adapted for leaping, a long muscular tail for balance, and a small head. Like most marsupials, female kangaroos have a pouch called a marsupium in which joeys complete postnatal development.
Larger kangaroos have adapted much better to changes brought to the Australian landscape by humans and though many of their smaller cousins are endangered, they are plentiful. They are not farmed to any extent, but wild kangaroos are shot for meat, leather hides, sport, and to protect grazing land for sheep and cattle. Although there is some controversy, harvesting kangaroo meat has many environmental and health benefits over traditional meats.
The kangaroo is a national symbol of Australia: its emblem is used on the Australian coat of arms, on some of its currency, as well as by some of Australia's well known organisations, including Qantas. The kangaroo is important to both Australian culture and the national image and consequently there are numerous popular culture references.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
