NATURE'S MARVELS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 51, 18 November 1946, Page 6

NATURE'S MARVELS

NEW BORN KANGAROO

ONLY AN INCH LONG

A baby kangaroo is a weird and wonderful object at the time of birth. The infant is hardly more than an inch long.

Differing entirely from the mature beast into which, with more than a slice of good luck, the curio will grow, pitifully weak and sparse, while on the other hand its shoulders and head are quite developed. When this extraordinary specimen enters the world, a shapeless mass, it must of necessity find its way without any assistance whatever, even from its mother, through her hair, until it is able to fasten itself to one of her breasts and glean nourishment.

This is the pivot of an infant kangaroo’s life, and a very perilous stage at that. The journey takes half an hour to complete. A quarter of a century ago it was generally allowed that Mrs ’Roo guided her infant to the necessary fount of noui'ishment, but it has since been proved beyond a shadow of doubt that about that time the mother affords no assistance whatever to her diminutive offspring. The midget kangaroo literally pushes its way through dense fur by a series of alternative arm movements. The action is quite comparable to the over-arm strokes of a swimmer. Travelling along the winding road, the grotesque little head sways from side to side. Finally the pouch, the desired haven, is reached, and an instinctive scramble for a nipple ensues. Life is a lottery for one and all, for even at this early stage the end may come.

Dame Nature, unfortunately for some of the offspring, has decreed that the female kangaroo, like all other members of the marsupial clan, produces many more young at birth than she can possibly cater for. There are not enough nipples to go round. If any of these little living objects are too late, they very literally “miss the bus.” They drop away into the limbo of forgotten things. It is the end.

The more fortunate ofies, who have drawn the prizes in this lottery of life, attach themselves to their maternal parent’s breasts, and there they hang on like grim death for four full months.

Their attachment to the prize, once secure, is so ardent that they become part and parcel of the nipple, and cannot be separated without fatal injury. They are for this period parasites on their mother’s body. Progress is made and the weird little lump of flesh assumes form and shape, and very slowly becomes

more and more like a real animal. Hair commences to grow and after a while even interest in the great world without the mother’s pouch is taken.

Real life is slowly developed, and with it the desire for a more varied diet. Occasionally out pokes a diminutive head, and even a bite of succulent grass upon which the mother is feeding is attempted. Inquistive little chaps they are at this stage, and often a tiny head pokes out of the pouch and sums up the big outside world. But fully cognisant of the safe haven at the slightest hint of danger the mite withdraws again into the comfortable cosy security of the mother’s pouch. Later comes “Independence Day” and the baby attempts a lone hand and ventures forth. At this stage the youngster becomes, in good Australian vernacular, a “joey.” The mother is left and the infant attempts wonderful-balancing feats on its ungainly hind legs. The “joey” is a caricature of animal life, with huge ears quite out of proportion to the size of the body. It rolls and stumbles like an animated tripod, for even at this stage its tail is, to all intents and purposes, a spare leg. Even now only very short trial trips are attempted, the termination always being a return to the blessed haven of the .pouch. One hint of danger and this desired goal is taken full advantage of.

At this stage “joey” is a nuisance to mother Too. The infant becomes outsize, and mother must perforce carry it around with head, hind legs, and tail protruding in a most ungainly fashion.