Fun Kangaroo Facts For Kids 2023 [Facts, Photos & More]
Kangaroos are pretty cool animals, even though they might look a little strange and rather different to other animals.
Kangaroos don’t walk, oh no, they jump everywhere! Let’s find out some cool facts about these awesome animals.
Kangaroos’ bodies are designed for jumping! They have short front legs, powerful back legs, huge back feet and strong tails. All of these help them to jump around and their tail balances them.
Kangaroos come from a family of animals called macropods, which means ‘large foot’. Their big feet help them with all that leaping around!
Kangaroos are the biggest macropods. Other macropods are wallabies (the smallest) and wallaroos, who are in between wallabies and kangaroos in size.
Quick Kangaroo Facts
- They are capable of a single bounding jump of 8 meters (25 feet).
- Female kangaroos have a pouch on their bellies that is created by a fold in the skin and used to cradle the young, known as joeys.
- In Australia, there are many more kangaroos than humans.
- Kangaroos are the world’s largest marsupials.
- Male kangaroos compete to see who is the fiercest.
- Kangaroos are great swimmers.
- Kangaroos are unable to move backward.
- The diet of a Kangaroo primarily consists of grass.
How Big Are Kangaroos?
Kangaroos stand between five and six feet (1.5 meters to 1.8 meters) tall from their feet to their long, pointed ears.
Kangaroos weigh between 50 and 120 pounds (23 kilograms to 55 kilograms). Male kangaroos are taller and heavier than female kangaroos.
Difference Between Male and Female Kangaroo
The key difference between male and female kangaroo is that male kangaroo does not have a pouch while female kangaroo has a pouch.
Male kangaroos are called bucks, boomers, jacks, or old men; females are does, flyers, or jills; and the young ones are joeys.
What Are Baby Kangaroos Called?
Baby kangaroos are called joeys. How cute is that?
Female kangaroos usually only have one joey at a time. Mother kangaroos have special pouches on the fronts of their bodies for carrying their joeys in. Kangaroos use their pouches to carry their babies and allow them to nurse while still remaining mobile.
Straight after they’ve been born, the tiny joey climbs up its mother’s fur to reach her pouch.
At this stage the joey really is tiny; just a few centimeters long. The joey then stays in its mother’s pouch for around 8 months until it is old enough to leap around on its own!
How do Kangaroos Travel?
Kangaroos are fast movers, usually travelling at around 20 to 25 miles (32 to 40 kilometers) per hour. However, when necessary, kangaroos can travel at 40 miles (64 kilometers) per hour! That’s pretty fast!
Kangaroos are brilliant jumpers, and can leap as high as 10 feet (3 meters).
That’s much taller than a fully grown man! They’re good at long jumps too, and have been recorded leaping distances of 23 feet (7 meters).
If three tall men lay down in a line, a kangaroo could jump over all of them.
That is a seriously big long jump.
Where do Kangaroos Live?
Kangaroos live in Australia. Different types of kangaroos live in different parts of Australia. Some kangaroos live in rainforests, some live in forests and some live in woodlands.
Some make their homes on the floor and some make their homes in trees!
There are more than 30 million kangaroos currently living in Australia. That’s a lot of kangaroos! There are road signs in Australia warning drivers of kangaroos in the road.
Types of Kangaroos
There are four types of kangaroos:
- Eastern Grey Kangaroo (Macropus giganteus)
- Red Kangaroo (Macropus rufus)
- Antilopine Kangaroo (Macropus antilophius)
- Eastern Gray Kangaroo (Macropus giganteus)
What are Mobs?
Kangaroos live with other kangaroos in groups. These groups are called mobs. A mob is made up of males, females and joeys.
The largest male kangaroo is the leader of the mob.
Kangaroo Boxing – True or Not?
Have you ever heard that kangaroo’s box? Sounds quite unreal doesn’t it. But it’s actually true, they do really box. It wouldn’t be cool to get in a boxing match with them.
Male kangaroos fight to decide which kangaroo is the toughest.
The female kangaroos prefer to have babies with the strongest male kangaroo because it means their babies are likely to grow up big and strong too.
When kangaroos box, they hold each other with their front legs and kick each other with their powerful hind legs.
Kangaroos can balance on their strong tails and use both hind legs to kick their opponents at the same time.
Wow, they really are strong and tough animals!
Now you know all about kangaroos. Do you have any other facts to share with us?