Page 85 - Atlas Of The World's Strangest Animals

RED KANGAROO 85

Once the tiny embryonic kangaroo reaches its mother’s Here he’ll stay, until he’s big enough to fend for himself, by
pouch, it attaches itself to a teat and begins to feed. which time, the pouch is quite a tight fit!

Regular feeds keep the joey fit and healthy. By now, a brother By the time he’s aged 1, the joey no longer needs his mother’s
or sister may be on the way too. milk, but he’ll stay by her side until he’s sexually mature.

once the process had been observed, it wasn’t until this in the womb.At this point, they’re little more than bean-
was filmed, in 1959, that people really believed it! sized embryos – blind, hairless and only a few centimetres
It was in 1629 that a Dutch sea Caption, Francois long. So no one knew exactly how this tiny creature
Pelsaert, first reported seeing a baby joey in the pouch could possibly make its way from the birth canal to the
of a wallaby (a relative of the kangaroo). Native people pouch. Several suggestions were put forwards, but it was
believed that the babies were born in the pouch and this only in 1913 that a tiny neonate was actually observed,
is what the Captain reported, and what was accepted as using its fore arms to haul itself through its mother’s fur
fact until 1830.Then,Alexander Collie, an amateur and into the pouch.This seemed like such an incredible
naturalist, managed to observe a joey being born – and feat that no one could really believe it. Even when it was
it happened in the usual mammalian way – down the confirmed by the Director of New York’s Zoological
birth canal. Gardens in 1923, many people were were still
Joeys are born at a much earlier stage of physical unconvinced. Finally, the whole process was caught on
development than is usual. Even in red kangaroos, which film and the world was, at last, able to marvel at the
are the largest species, the baby emerges after just 33 days momentous achievement of these bean-sized babies.

(c) 2011 Marshall Cavendish. All Rights Reserved.