Kangaroos are mammalian animals that come from what we now know as Australia. Most of us know how to recognize them by some of their main characteristics, such as, for example, that these animals do not walk. That’s right, kangaroos don’t walk, instead they jump, which is why nature has endowed them with large and strong legs and a heavy tail which helps them stabilize and maintain balance when jumping or standing.
They are one of the few non-hominid mammalian animals that spend most of their time on two legs. Another thing that makes us distinguish kangaroos from other types of animals is that they have a bag on their abdomen. Possibly due to the influence of television and cartoons in particular, you might think that they keep lots of things in their bags, but the truth is not. In reality, these bags serve to protect and nurse their young, which are sheltered from the environment under the protection of the bag where their mother cares for them and they can feed.
In addition to the above, kangaroos use the bag as a means of transport for their babies, which, as we can see, is very useful in many ways? However, due to their great size and strength, many people believe that kangaroos are aggressive and predatory beings, but the reality is very different from that fantasy. Although kangaroos use force when threatened, generally as long as they and their habitat are respected, there is no reason to fear. In addition, it should be noted that they are not predators, kangaroos do not actually hunt, and they obtain their food from the plants and vegetables that nature provides them.
That is why today we want to help you better understand what kangaroos are like and get to know them with this article, so see what we have to show you and read below what kangaroos eat.
Instructions
- As we have already mentioned, kangaroos are herbivores, which means that most or all of their food is obtained from plants and vegetables and that they do not consume meat of any kind. It is important to emphasize this fact due to the misinformation that exists in this regard, since many people have the idea that kangaroos hunt animals or that they are potentially dangerous to humans, when this is not the case.
- However, just because all kangaroos are herbivores doesn’t mean they all eat the same thing. Depending on the species of kangaroos we are talking about, we will be able to differentiate and define what type of food they frequent the most and how they look for it and consume it.
- There are 4 types of kangaroos that we can take as a reference to classify them, although there are more than 75 species, all from Australia. The types to know about are the red kangaroos, the eastern gray kangaroo, the western gray kangaroo, and the antelope kangaroo.
- In the case of red kangaroos, they feed mostly on stubble. That is, plants such as grass and leaves of trees and shrubs. They can take hours to eat and collect a day’s worth of food, which is why they spend a lot of time feeding. On the other hand, eastern gray kangaroos prefer to base their food on grasses, of which they not only consume part of the stem or leaves, but also take advantage of grains such as rye, wheat or barley.
- On the other hand, a very curious thing that can draw our attention, are the similarities between the way of eating of kangaroos and cattle. Kangaroos, like cows, can also consume their own food after eating it when it has been regurgitated. That is, due to the system of their stomachs with various cavities, they can store food temporarily to later regurgitate it and chew it to eat it again.
- A very curious thing about kangaroos is their teeth. These animals have unique and very interesting teeth. Their front teeth are incisors similar to those of humans, and behind them in the same way as us, they also have molars. Kangaroos use their incisors to cut the grass and grass they consume and their molars to grind up food so they can swallow it.
- However, because grass tends to be leathery and abrasive, it is common for the front teeth to wear down and fall out with age, but the funny thing about this is that the rear teeth move to the front to replace the teeth that have fallen out and as if that were not enough, over time new teeth are born to complete the teeth in the back where the teeth that moved to the front were.
- In the case of babies, when they are born they feed only on breast milk, however, when they reach sufficient maturity in infancy, they occasionally come out of the bag to consume grass as well as continue to consume breast milk until they grow up. Once the baby has reached weaning age, she eats the same as adults, on plants and herbs.
Tips
Although there are kangaroos that range from the size of a rat to those that exceed two meters in height from head to toe (that is, without counting the wide tail), in all cases we can highlight that babies are born between 26 and 36 days, they are born without hair, with their eyes still closed and their ears are still in the embryonic stage, for which it can be understood that kangaroos finish developing in their mother’s pouch and without it, they would surely die in an environment natural.
