Kangaroos Essay, Research Paper

Kangaroos

The kangaroos are not only best known in Australian Mammals they are the largest. The kangaroos include the red of the inland plains, the grays of the southern forests and woodlands. Wallaroos are shorter and heavily built. They also have fury hair. The closest related is the Antilopine kangaroo of the northern tropical grassland. The pouch is the way of carrying their young. The kangaroos, together with the smaller Wallabies, are known as the Macropodidae, a reference to the very large elongated hind feet. Their long and hairy tail serves as a balance when they are traveling at great speed. It is also just like an extra leg when standing or moving very slowly. Kangaroos have teeth modified for grazing. The little front teeth of the lower jaw have gone, leaving only two large scissor-like protruding incisors which, in grazing, bear up against a leathery pad between the semicircle of the three pairs of upper incisors, an arrangement known as diprotodonty. The kangaroo family contains a great many species ranging in size from seven-foot tall giants, to little rat kangaroos. The largest wallabies have a total length, nose to tail up, of about seventy-two inches. The rat-kangaroo group contains the smallest members of the kangaroo family. They have short rounded ears. They have short back legs and use their front legs in a galloping run instead of hopping. Pademelon is the name applied to certain very small Wallabies, which favor thickets and undergrowth. Apart from small size, they have short tails, which look thicker. Being small they are very vulnerable, & have been rare and extinct. One species still common is Tasmania’s redbellied Pademelon.

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