Meet Captain Cook’s Kickboxers

A recent addition to the Dehiwala Zoo are two kangaroos from Japan’s Nagoya Higashiyama zoo. Initially shy, this pair is now fully acquainted with their new environment. ZooLander this week reports about the Zoo’s new residents.

British explorer James Cook landed in the then unknown lands of Australia, in 1770, on his voyage to find a new continent in the southern seas. Australia’s Great Barrier Reef had damaged his ship, and they had to move inland and anchor it in a river. While the ship was being repaired, Captain Cook and a team decided to explore the hitherto unvisited new paradise in the company of the locals - the indigenous Aborigines who spoke a language named Guugu Yimithirr.
Suddenly Captain Cook had seen a strange looking creature hopping fast, scared by the people that had penetrated its territory. It had a long tail, strong hind legs but small fore limbs – and the animal had to bend awkwardly to touch the ground (in a manner touching it with all 4 legs.) Puzzled by the strange animal, Captain Cook asked the Aborigines “what is this animal..?”. The native replied kangaru which in his language meant ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t understand’. Driven by excitement the explorer failed to realize that the Aborigine had not understood his question and the name has been kept since then.
This is the common myth about the origin of the name “kangaroo” and this story has become  Australian legend. Other fictions  behind the origin of the name includes variations of the above. Explorers are said to have mistaken the Aboriginal word for go that way (kangaroo) when an Aborigine pointed in a direction that a kangaroo happened to be headed. Another story says that when explorers asked the indigenous people what the first kangaroo they saw was, pointing at it, the natives replied “kangaroo!” meaning “That’s your index finger!”
However, these stories are only myths and later language experts conclude that the word “kangaroo” has been derived from the Aboriginal word gangurru, a Guugu Yimidhirr word referring to the Grey Kangaroo. Whatever the reality is, the legend surrounding  how the ‘kangaroo’ got its name is as fascinating as the pair of kangaroos now resident at the Dehiwala Zoo, and which you have the opportunity to closely observe.

Shipped from Japan
This pair of kangaroos has been shipped from Japan’s Higashiyama Zoo located in Nagoya.
The Kangaroos were very shy on the first few days in their enclosure at the Dehiwala Zoo. They had rarely come out from their cage to the open area, though they have been given a fairly large enclosure to play around in. It had taken few weeks for them to gain confidence. Now it is a pair of different kangaroos that hops around the enclosure. The large male also likes to rest in the shade during the hot afternoons and  would remind you of a celebrity laying on a beach. The female is smaller in size and more energetic and wants to keep on exercising, hopping around the enclosure unlike the lazy male.

Hopping for a living
You would have seen lots of small animals hopping as a way to move around, but kangaroos are the only large animals who hop as a means of locomotion. Kangaroos can continue hopping for about 20-25 km/h (13-16 mph), and can reach of speeds of up to a 70 km/h (44 mph) when it is running to escape from impending danger to its life. Hopping is largely energy efficient for kangaroos because of the way its body is designed and zoologists believe this fast and energy efficient method of travel has evolved because of the need to regularly cover large distances in search of food and water – rather than the need to escape predators.
The kangaroo has a very strong tail and it can stand on its tail like a tripod. Also when the kangaroo moves at slow speeds, it uses the tail to form a tripod with its two forelimbs then raises its hind feet to move forward. It is said that kangaroos can also swim in emergencies. Many have witnessed kangaroos jumping into waterways and swimming away to escape predators. If pursued into the water, it is also said that a kangaroo might use its forepaws to hold the predator underwater so as to drown it.
The pouchy mom kangaroo is indeed a distinctive animal and is also a marsupial - which has a pouch on its belly to rear its baby. A kangaroo carries its baby in its pouch and usually have one young annually. The young kangaroo, or joey, is born alive at a very immature stage; after a gestation period of 33 days an embryonic young weighing about  one gram is born. This ‘jellybean’ will then crawl up from its mother’s cloacae into the pouch where it will attach itself to a vacant nipple and there it will stay for around the next 34 weeks. After emerging from the pouch the young will continue to suckle from its mother for a further four months.  After several weeks, little joey becomes more active and gradually spends more and more time outside the pouch, which it leaves completely when its about 7 to 10 months of age.
Even when quite large the joey still drinks milk from a teat in its mother’s pouch and will jump into its mother’s pouch head first when frightened. Even after they grow up, they sometimes jump into the pouch with utter difficulty, to try to fit into it - luckily the mother tolerates the young.
The kangaroo can have three young simultaneously, all at different stages of development, one in diapauses, one pouch young and an at-foot joey. Mating occurs at any time of the year but only with receptive females. Kangaroos also have a reproductive adaptation called “delayed implantation.” The fertilized egg will cease development and wait.
Depending on the growth of the joey in the pouch or the weather that season, the fertilized egg will begin development when the mother kangaroo is ready. Kangaroos raise on average three young every two years.
The kangaroo is a herbivore that mainly feeds on grass. They are more active at dusk when the environment is cooler. It is said that on the Australian coat of arms the emu and the kangaroo were selected as symbols to represent the country  because they are always moving forward and never move backwards – indicative of progress.
There are 47 varieties of kangaroo, ranging in size from the two-pound Rock Wallaby to the 6-foot, 300-pound Red Kangaroo. When the Europeans first arrived in Australia, the Red Kangaroo was the biggest mammal on the continent. With the settlers came foreign species that pushed the indigenous  kangaroo down the list, to rank 13, behind the introduced camels, buffalos, bantengs, cattle, horses, donkeys, pigs and several species of deer. The kangaroo doesn’t have a natural predator in Australia, but people have introduced animals such as dingo dogs that have started hunting kangaroos.
Male kangaroos often “box” among themselves, playfully, for dominance, or in competition for mates. The dexterity of their forepaws is used in both punching and grappling with the foe, but the real danger lies in a serious kick with the hind-leg. The sharpened hind claws can disembowel an opponent, so it can also be dangerous to go closer to a kangaroo as an accident can happen anytime. But in the wild, it is fascinating to watch the kangaroo opponents fight each other in the way human opponents do ‘kick boxing’.

Published olakdbimaNews on 28.04.2012