Animal · Australia
Red kangaroo
Osphranter rufus — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The red kangaroo is the largest marsupial on Earth, bounding across the dry outback of inland Australia in powerful hops. Males are reddish-brown, while females are often blue-grey.
Picture credit: PotMart186 (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Calistemon (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Calistemon (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the red kangaroo live?
Home: Deserts and dry grasslands of inland Australia.
In the wild you find it in: Australia.
Conservation status from the IUCN: not in danger.
The short profile
Fully grown it measures up to 1.6 m tall standing, plus a 1 m tail. It weighs about 55 kilograms. On the menu: plants.
The story behind it
A red kangaroo can leap up to 9 metres in a single bound and reach speeds of about 70 km/h thanks to huge, elastic tendons in its legs that work like springs, storing and releasing energy with almost no extra effort. It cannot walk backwards at all because of the shape of its legs and tail. A newborn joey is smaller than a jellybean when it is born and crawls into its mother's pouch to keep growing safely for several months. In dry years, female red kangaroos can even pause a pregnancy until conditions improve. Thanks to this toughness, red kangaroos thrive across Australia's harsh outback today.
Find it on the globe
Red kangaroo is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
Can kangaroos walk backwards?
No, kangaroos cannot walk backwards because of how their powerful hind legs, feet and large tail are built for forward hopping only. This is even why the kangaroo appears on Australia's coat of arms, as a symbol of moving forward.
How fast can a kangaroo hop?
A red kangaroo can hop at around 70 km/h in short bursts and cruise comfortably at 20 to 25 km/h over long distances. Its stretchy leg tendons act like springs, making hopping surprisingly energy-efficient.
How big is a baby kangaroo?
A newborn kangaroo joey is tiny, usually less than 2 cm long and smaller than a jellybean, and completely undeveloped. It crawls unaided into its mother's pouch, where it attaches to a teat and keeps growing for several months.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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