Kangaroo

A kangaroo is an animal found only in Australia, although it has a smaller relative, called a wallaby, which lives on the Australian island of Tasmania and also in New Guinea.

Kangaroos eat grass and plants. They have short front legs, but very long, and very strong back legs and a tail. These are used for sitting up and for jumping. Kangaroos have been known to make forward jumps of over eight metres, and leap across fences more than three metres high. They can also run at speeds of over 45 kilometres per hour.

The largest kangaroos are the Great Grey Kangaroo and the Red Kangaroo. Adult grow to a length of 1.60 metres and weigh over 90 kilos.

Kangaroos are marsupials. This means that the female kangaroo has an external pouch on the front of her body. A baby kangaroo is very tiny when it is born, and it crawls at once into this pouch where it spends its first five months of life.