Wednesday, September 6, 2017
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
Toad Tuesday
| Kangaroo Temporal range: Early Miocene- Present | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Female Eastern grey kangaroowith joey (baby) in pouch | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Infraclass: | Marsupialia |
| Order: | Diprotodontia |
| Family: | Macropodidae |
| Genus: | Macropus |
| Subgenus: | Macropus and Osphranter |
| Species | |
4 species, see text.
| |
The kangaroo is a marsupial from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, especially those of the genus Macropus: the red kangaroo, antilopine kangaroo, eastern grey kangaroo, and western grey kangaroo.[1] Kangaroos are endemic to Australia. The Australian government estimates that 34.3 million kangaroos lived within the commercial harvest areas of Australia in 2011, up from 25.1 million one year earlier.[2]
As with the terms "wallaroo" and "wallaby", "kangaroo" refers to a polyphyletic grouping of species. All three refer to members of the same taxonomic family, Macropodidae, and are distinguished according to size. The largest species in the family are called "kangaroos" and the smallest are generally called "wallabies". The term "wallaroos" refers to species of an intermediate size.[3] There is also the tree-kangaroo, another genus of macropod, which inhabits the tropical rainforests of New Guinea, far northeastern Queensland and some of the islands in the region. A general idea of the relative size of these informal terms could be:
- wallabies: head and body length of 45–105 cm and tail length of 33–75 cm; The dwarf wallaby (the smallest member) length is 46 cm and weigh of 1.6 kg;
- tree-kangaroos: from Lumholtz's tree-kangaroo body and head length of 48–65 cm, tail of 60–74 cm, weigh of 7.2 kg (16 lb) for males and 5.9 kg (13 lb) for females; to the grizzled tree-kangaroo length of 75–90 cm (30 to 35 in) and weight of 8–15 kg (18–33 lb);
- wallaroos: the black wallaroo, the smallest by far, with a tail length of 60–70 cm and weight of 19–22 kg for males and 13 kg for females;
- kangaroos: a large male can be 2 m (6 ft 7 in) tall and weigh 90 kg (200 lb).
Kangaroos have large, powerful hind legs, large feet adapted for leaping, a long muscular tail for balance, and a small head. Like most marsupials, female kangaroos have a pouch called a marsupium in which joeys complete postnatal development.
The large kangaroos have adapted much better than the smaller macropods to land clearing for pastoral agriculture and habitat changes brought to the Australian landscape by humans. Many of the smaller species are rare and endangered, while kangaroos are relatively plentiful.
The kangaroo is a symbol of Australia and appears on the Australian coat of arms[4] and on some of its currency[5] and is used by some of Australia's well known organisations, including Qantas[6] and the Royal Australian Air Force.[7] The kangaroo is important to both Australian culture and the national image, and consequently there are numerous popular culture references.
Wild kangaroos are shot for meat, leather hides, and to protect grazing land.[8] Although controversial, kangaroo meat has perceived health benefits for human consumption compared with traditional meats due to the low level of fat on kangaroos.
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Monday, September 4, 2017
Molly and Todd on Monday
We have been kind of feeling kind of under the weather... . or at least BG is. He seems to have a cold and it has settled to his lungs.. And his chair had to be fixed so that was a problem. Fortunately he had a company when it purchased it. Rediker furniture had a man to fix it..B G made us sit in the porch so I could not bother them. But they came and helped me move the other chair out of the way so BG can sit in his chair again. Brandon is going to remount chair and move the other one out. You can see we still have a mess.
In other news we got our monthly bouquet. It is pretty. When BG went out to pick them up he watched as the Flower Shop Cat came out and hid under his car. So they had to get it to come back in so he could drive home without running over the cat.
Here is Todd giving me a kiss. He is sweet.
Nap time!
Then Todd tried to eat BG's fingers.
Then we posed for our facebook picture.
There is a picture of me on the couch.
Here is one of the spots where Todd likes to nap. You just can see his eye reflecting and the red rabies tag.
BG can always find him there....or by the book shelf, or in his kennel or under the couch...or he comes to BG for scratching. And so that is about it.
I hope you have a good week. Jon and Liz are going to soon. We are glad they we come to see us.
Thanks for stopping to see us. Be good and remember to smell the flowers.
Woof!
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