Since my blog is focusing on life cycles, I thought I would look into Australia's Kangaroo. When I lived in Australia, I had the opportunity to visit a wildlife park where I actually got to feed kanagroos and wallabies. I hope you enjoy the information I found as well as the pictures I took when I was there.
I found all of this information on this amazing website http://www.kidcyber.com.au/topics/kanga.htm
When kangaroos also known as joeys are born, they weigh less than 2 grams. The mother licks her fur so the joey knows where to go in order to get in her pouch where he/she stays for about nine months.
After nine months, the joey will leave his mother's pouch, but then return for milk until it no longer requires milk for survival.
Something that I found interesting from this website was that the female kangaroo generally has another baby in the womb in "suspense". This means that the baby has developed some and then stops and waits. After the first joey leaves his mom's pouch, the other baby finishes developing and then few weeks later, joey number two is born. The youngest joey will be living in her pouch drinking milk while the oldest comes back for his milk as well. Each joey has a different kind of milk they need for nourishment from their mom.
If the conditions in the wild aren't favorable due to drought, then the mother kangaroo will wait to develop the youngest joey so that she will have enough food for both of her babies.
I found this information so neat, how cool is mother nature to where the mom can actually suspend development in the womb and it not have negative effects?
Linsley, that is so cool! I never knew that mom kangaroos can suspend the development of the joeys! Wouldn't that be great if people could do that? "Oh, little Timmy is having trouble with potty training. Two in diapers would really strap us for cash, so we'll hold off a little longer on this next one." Haha!
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