BABY WALLABY AT NEWTOWN ZOO

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 42, 13 November 1940, Page 6

BABY WALLABY AT NEWTOWN ZOO

Curious Method Of Upbringing

Au interesting arrival at Newtown Bark Zoo, Wellington, is a baby wallaby, which in the last two days has looked out at the world for the first time from its mother’s pouch. This does not mean, however, that it is only two days old. a<s young marsupials spend their infancy in tbe seclusion of the parent’s pouch, aud only thrust their beads out when they arc approaching the weaning stage. When a baby wallaby or kangaroo is born, it is only about the size of a bumble bee. It immediately scrambles into tbe mother’s pouch, directed by instinct, and fastens onto her nipple. The latter expands in its mouth, so that it cannot thereafter let go till it attains that stage of maturity when it is ready to look out at the world. It then weansitself by snatching blades of grass as the mother browses, and later emerges from the pouch for short intervals before finally assuming complete independence. At. the stage now reached by the young wallaby at the Wellington Zoo, wallabies always prove popular exhibits with visitors, interested by this unusual mode of infantile development, aud by the extremely han'dy facilities possessed by another kangaroo for carrying her baby about with her. The newly-born tiger cubs at the zoo are stated to be doing well.