Natural History

Posted in wildlife | Tagged eastern grey kangaroo, grey kangaroo, marsupial | 7 Comments

7 Responses

1. on November 10, 2010 at 6:59 pm Pai

   Marsupials are so bizarre. How such a weird style of birth evolved is beyond me! Has there ever been a theory put forth as to how it could’ve happened, that you know of?

   
   
2. on November 10, 2010 at 8:30 pm leashedForLife

   “cute”? errrmm, no – unfinished, tiny, incredible!
   not cute; joeys are cute. a fetus, which is what a newborn marsupial is, anyhow, isn’t cute.

   heck, the newborn humans i have seen weren’t cute;
   misshapen skulls from the birth-canal, covered in slime?
   purple and greasy? even cleaned-up, their blunt faces and slit-like eyes are not really reminiscent of a 6-MO baby.

   helpless newborns are lucky they have besotted mums.
   precocial neonates get all my cute votes, LOL –
   chicks are cute; songbird nestlings are scrawny, nude, blind, and plug-ugly. the helpless ones IME improve considerably with age.
   a 3-WO lamb is adorable; a cheddar-cheese drenched newborn lamb is all legs and scrawny ribs and soggy, drooping ears – not a huggable creature.
   – terry

   terry pride, APDT-Aus, apdt#1827, CVA, TDF

   
   
3. on November 11, 2010 at 9:33 am Labrador breeder Australia

   Yes retrieverman these are Eastern Grey Kangaroos (as opposed to the Red Kangaroos, which are normally much larger).

   Nice to see a bit of Australia getting shared!

   Also, congrats on a cool site.

   
   
4. on November 11, 2010 at 1:12 pm Lane Batot

   Another AMAZING factoid about kangaroos and their young—as one joey is leaving the pouch, another is born. The expelled joey continues to suckle, however, on a different nipple from the one the newborn is attached to. And the mom produces two different milk formulas in the different nipples to accomodate the very different needs of her two joeys!

   
   
5. on November 11, 2010 at 2:15 pm Jess

   Cute? No. Looks like somebody stuck a newborn rat in a rock tumbler for a few seconds.

   
   
   • on November 11, 2010 at 2:34 pm retrieverman

     I remember reading from Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’s Hidden Life of Dogs about the time she raised some opossum joeys.

     Her super-predatory Canadian First Nations husky-type tried to mother them.

     I guess they aren’t cute to us, but to other species, they might be.

     I find neonatal puppies to be extremely cute, but then I’m weird.

     
     
     • on November 11, 2010 at 3:04 pm Jess

       Pre-eye opening pups look like rat pups to me. They are still cute, though. Unless they are hairless, or Azawakh pups. Pups from hairless breeds look like naked mole rats, and Azawakh have a fine-skinned wrinkly appearance that just isn’t that cute.

       
       

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