“A red kangaroo cannot walk easily on its hind legs but can hop very fast.”
Red kangaroos are Australia's largest marsupials. They hop across dry grasslands on powerful hind legs, carry joeys in a pouch, and graze mostly on plants.
By An Nguyen · Published · Updated
Browse photographs of red kangaroo across habitat, behavior, anatomy, and life stages.
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Core article
A closer look at habitat, diet, behavior, reproduction, and conservation.
The red kangaroo (Macropus rufus) is the largest living marsupial and the biggest land mammal native to Australia, an icon of the arid outback. It is shaped by two things above all: a spring-loaded hopping gait that crosses vast dry country cheaply, and a reproductive system flexible enough to pause a pregnancy until the rains return. Muscular, nomadic, and water-thrifty, the red kangaroo thrives on open plains where most large grazers could not.
A kangaroo's hop is a feat of biomechanics, not brute effort. Its huge hind legs carry highly elastic Achilles tendons that compress like springs on landing and release that stored energy into the next leap, so fast hopping actually costs less energy the faster it goes — a red kangaroo can reach 35 mph and clear over 25 feet in a bound. The heavy tail is effectively a fifth leg: a counterbalance at speed, and when the animal grazes slowly it plants the tail and swings both hind legs forward (pentapedal walking). Unable to sweat much, kangaroos lick their forearms so evaporating saliva cools the blood in a dense network of vessels there, and a chambered stomach ferments tough grass. Males ("boomers") stand up to 6 feet and 200 pounds; females ("flyers") are far smaller and bluish-grey.
The red kangaroo has the largest range of any kangaroo, across the arid interior of mainland Australia. It avoids the wet coasts, dense forest, and tropical north, favouring low-rainfall country: savanna and open grassland for forage and travel, desert and semi-arid scrub where its water thrift is an advantage, and mulga woodland for midday shade.
Red kangaroos are strict grazers, living on dry grasses such as Mitchell grass and spinifex, forbs, and low shrubs in drought. They are highly nomadic, tracking unpredictable rain across the outback to reach fresh green growth, and feed mainly at dawn, dusk, and night to limit water loss. In good seasons a red kangaroo can get almost all the water it needs from its food and go months without drinking.
Red kangaroos are gregarious, gathering in loose, shifting groups called "mobs" that range from a handful to several hundred around water or fresh grass. Dominant males compete for mating rights by "boxing": ritual muscle-flexing and grappling with the forearms that can escalate to both animals balancing on their tails and delivering a powerful kick with the hind feet. They do not hold strict territories — in such an unpredictable, arid environment, resources are too scattered to defend.
Kangaroo reproduction is unusually flexible. After a gestation of only about 33 days a tiny, jellybean-sized joey is born and climbs unaided through the fur into the pouch, where it fuses to a teat for roughly 70 days before slowly developing and emerging around 190 days. A female is almost always pregnant: soon after birth she mates again, but the new embryo pauses at about 100 cells in suspended animation (embryonic diapause) and only resumes once the older joey leaves the pouch — and she can produce two different milks at once for young at different stages. In drought she can halt reproduction entirely until conditions improve. Wild red kangaroos live 8 to 12 years.
The red kangaroo is Least Concern, with a population in the tens of millions across its huge range. It is not pressure-free, though: severe droughts cause massive die-offs, and climate change is making those droughts more frequent and intense. Kangaroos also compete with livestock for grazing, leading to government-managed culling, and are a major cause of vehicle collisions on outback roads at dawn and dusk. Adults have few predators beyond dingoes, but joeys fall to wedge-tailed eagles and introduced foxes.
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Chordata
Class
Mammalia
Order
Diprotodontia
Family
Macropodidae
Genus
Macropus
Species
M. rufus
A red kangaroo cannot walk easily on its hind legs but can hop very fast.
Joeys are born tiny and finish growing inside the mother's pouch.
Male kangaroos sometimes box with their front legs during disputes.
A kangaroo's tail helps it balance and can support its weight while sitting.
Red kangaroos are the largest marsupials in the world.
Kangaroos often rest in the shade during the hottest part of the day.
Select a question to reveal the answer.
A kangaroo is a marsupial mammal from Australia that moves by hopping and raises its young in a pouch.
Red kangaroos live across dry inland Australia in grasslands, scrub, and open woodlands.
Kangaroos are herbivores that graze on grasses, leaves, and shrubs.
A baby kangaroo is called a joey. Joeys grow inside the mother's pouch after birth.
Hopping lets kangaroos move quickly across open ground while saving energy over long distances.
A red kangaroo can leap more than 6 feet high and cover more than 25 feet in one bound.
Red kangaroos are listed as Least Concern and remain widespread, though drought can be hard on local populations.
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