Facts about Australian Kangaroos
The Kangaroo is an unofficial symbol of Australia. It is used by some of Australia's well known organisations, including Qantas and the Royal Australian Air Force. The kangaroo is important to both Australian culture and the national image, and consequently there are numerous popular culture references.
Australian wild Kangaroo
Wild kangaroos are shot for meat, leather hides, and to protect grazing land. Although controversial, harvesting kangaroo meat has some environmental advantages to limit over-grazing and the meat has perceived health benefits for human consumption compared with traditional meats due to the low level of fat on kangaroos.
Social behavior of Kangaroos
Groups of kangaroos are called mobs. Mobs usually have 10 or more kangaroos in them. Living in mobs provides protection for some of the weaker members of the group. The size and stability of the mobs vary between geographic regions, with eastern Australia having larger and more stable aggregations than in arid areas farther west. Larger aggregations display high amounts of interactions and complex social structures, comparable to that of ungulates. One common behaviour is nose touching and sniffing, which mostly occurs when an individual joins a group. The kangaroos performing the sniffing gain much information from smell cues.
Kangaroos Adaptations
Kangaroos have developed a number of adaptations to a dry infertile country and highly variable climate. As with all marsupials, the young are born at a very early stage of development after a gestation of 31 to 36 days. At this stage only the forelimbs are somewhat developed, to allow the newborn to climb to the pouch and attach to a teat. In comparison, a human embryo at a similar stage of development would be about seven weeks old, and premature babies born at less than 23 weeks are usually not mature enough to survive.