Before European settlement, the kangaroo was very important to Australian Aborigines for its meat, hide, bones, and sinews.
A sequencing project of the Kangaroo genome was started in 2004 as a collaboration between Australia (mainly funded by the state of Victoria) and the National Institutes of Health in the US.
The average life expectancy of a kangaroo is about four to six years, with some living until they are about 23.
The male kangaroo may sometimes be found giving the female kangaroo a back rub before mating.
Kangaroos are the only large animals to use hopping as a means of locomotion.
Combined with the two-headed appearance of a mother kangaroo, this led many back home to dismiss them as travelers' tales for quite some time.
The male kangaroo will sniff the urine multiple times until it is satisfied, then proceed to pursue the mating cycle.
Along with dingoes and other canids, introduced species like foxes and feral cats also pose a threat to kangaroo populations.
The comfortable hopping speed for Red Kangaroos is about 20–25 km/h (13–16 mph), but speeds of up to 70 km/h (43 mph) can be attained over short distances.
Kangaroos blinded by headlights or startled by engine noise have been known to leap in front of cars.
The arched tail is indicative that either one or both kangaroos are ready to mate.
Goannas and some other carnivorous reptiles also pose a danger to smaller kangaroo species when other food sources are lacking.
Studies of kangaroo reproduction conclude that this ritual is typical so that a male kangaroo may check whether the female kangaroo is receptive to him.
Smaller macropod species generally are referred to as wallabies rather than kangaroos, while some intermediate in size are called wallaroos.
Male kangaroos are called bucks, boomers, jacks, or old men; females are does, flyers, or jills, and the young ones are joeys.
Other suggested causes for erratic and dangerous kangaroo behavior include extreme thirst and hunger.
A kangaroo is any of several large marsupial mammals of the Macropodidae family, which includes wallabies, tree-kangaroos, wallaroos, pademelons, and quokkas, with at least 69 species in total.
Kangaroos are best known for their great leaping power due to the structure of their hind legs.
The game of Marn Grook was played by the Kurnai people using a ball made from a kangaroo scrotum.
The only reliably documented case of a fatality from a kangaroo attack occurred in New South Wales in 1936.
The kangaroo is an Australian icon: it is featured on the Australian Coat of Arms and on some currency, and is used by many Australian organizations, such as Qantas.
The word kangaroo derives from the word gangurru, referring to a gray kangaroo, of the Guugu Yimidhirr, an Australian Aboriginal language.
The Thylacine, considered by palaeontologists to have once been a major natural predator of the kangaroo, is now extinct.
Kangaroo soon became adopted into standard English where it has come to mean any member of the family Macropodidae.
Kangaroos and wallabies are adept swimmers, and often flee into waterways if presented with the option.
Kangaroos have large, powerful hind legs, large feet adapted for leaping, a long muscular tail for balance, and a small head.
Like all marsupials, kangaroos have a pouch called a marsupium in which joeys complete postnatal development.
Usually wildlife sanctuaries are willing to adopt kangaroos that are no longer practical to raise and have grown too large to contain.
Aherrenge is a current kangaroo dreaming site in the Northern Territory.
Kangaroos are shy and retiring by nature and in normal circumstances present no threat to humans.
Male kangaroos often "box" amongst each other, either playfully, for dominance, or in competition for mates.
A kangaroo is any of several large marsupial mammals of the Macropodidae family, which includes wallabies, tree-kangaroos, wallaroos, pademelons, and quokkas, with at least 69 species in total.
Kangaroo: Reproduction. ... Kangaroos reproduce in much the same way as the opossums. The egg which is still enclosed in the vestiges of a shell a few microns thick and has only a small quantity of yolk within it, and descends from the ovary into the uterus. There, lying free, it is fertilised and begins its development.
Kangaroos are marsupials, like Opossums. ... Marsupials give live birth like placental mammals, but they give birth to immature babies that crawl into a special pouch, latch on the a teat, and remain their while they finished developing.