The local responded "kangaroo", said to mean "I don't know/understand", which Cook then took to be the name of the creature. They asked a nearby local what the creatures were called. According to this legend, Cook and Banks were exploring the area when they happened upon the animal. Guugu Yimithirr is the language of the people of the area.Ī common myth about the kangaroo's English name is that it was a Guugu Yimithirr phrase for "I don't know" or "I don't understand". Cook first referred to kangaroos in his diary entry of 4 August. The name was first recorded as "kanguru" on 12 July 1770 in an entry in the diary of Sir Joseph Banks this occurred at the site of modern Cooktown, on the banks of the Endeavour River, where HMS Endeavour under the command of Lieutenant James Cook was beached for almost seven weeks to repair damage sustained on the Great Barrier Reef. The word kangaroo derives from the Guugu Yimithirr word gangurru, referring to eastern grey kangaroos. Kangaroo meat has perceived health benefits for human consumption compared with traditional meats due to the low level of fat on kangaroos. Wild kangaroos are shot for meat, leather hides, and to protect grazing land. The kangaroo is important to both Australian culture and the national image, and consequently there are numerous popular culture references. A kangaroo appears on the Australian coat of arms and on some of its currency, and is used as a logo for some of Australia's most well-known organisations, such as Qantas, and as the roundel of the Royal Australian Air Force. The kangaroo along with the koala are symbols of Australia. Many of the smaller species are rare and endangered, while kangaroos are relatively plentiful.
The large kangaroos have adapted much better than the smaller macropods to land clearing for pastoral agriculture and habitat changes brought to the Australian landscape by humans. This process is known as polyphyodonty and, amongst other mammals, only occurs in elephants and manatees.
The silica in grass is abrasive, so kangaroo molars are ground down and they actually move forward in the mouth before they eventually fall out, and are replaced by new teeth that grow in the back. Since the two sides of the lower jaw are not joined or fused together, the lower incisors are farther apart, giving the kangaroo a wider bite. Its incisors are able to crop grass close to the ground and its molars chop and grind the grass. Like most marsupials, female kangaroos have a pouch called a marsupium in which joeys complete postnatal development.īecause of its grazing habits, the kangaroo has developed specialized teeth that are rare among mammals. Kangaroos have large, powerful hind legs, large feet adapted for leaping, a long muscular tail for balance, and a small head. kangaroos: a large male can be 2 m (6 ft 7 in) tall and weigh 90 kg (200 lb).wallaroos: the black wallaroo (the smaller of the two species) with a tail length of 60–70 cm and weight of 19–22 kg (41.8–48.5 lb) for males and 13 kg (28.6 lb) for females.tree-kangaroos: ranging from Lumholtz's tree-kangaroo: body and head length of 48–65 cm, tail of 60–74 cm, weight of 7.2 kg (16 lb) for males and 5.9 kg (13 lb) for females to the grizzled tree-kangaroo: length of 75–90 cm (30 to 35 in) and weight of 8–15 kg (18–33 lb).wallabies: head and body length of 45–105 cm and tail length of 33–75 cm the dwarf wallaby (the smallest of all known macropod species) is 46 cm long and weighs 1.6 kg.
A general idea of the relative size of these informal terms could be: This kind of kangaroo lives in the upper branches of trees. There are also the tree-kangaroos, another type of macropod, which inhabit the tropical rainforests of New Guinea, far northeastern Queensland and some of the islands in the region. The term "wallaroos" refers to species of an intermediate size. The largest species in the family are called "kangaroos" and the smallest are generally called "wallabies". All three terms refer to members of the same taxonomic family, Macropodidae, and are distinguished according to size. Īs with the terms " wallaroo" and " wallaby", "kangaroo" refers to a paraphyletic grouping of species. The Australian government estimates that 42.8 million kangaroos lived within the commercial harvest areas of Australia in 2019, down from 53.2 million in 2013. Kangaroos are indigenous to Australia and New Guinea. In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern grey kangaroo, and western grey kangaroo. Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). Cladistically included but traditionally excluded taxa
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