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Kangaroos
Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern grey kangaroo, and western grey kangaroo. Kangaroos are indigenous to Australia and New Guinea. The Australian government estimates that 42.8 million kangaroos lived within the commercial harvest areas of Australia in 2019, down from 53.2 million in 2013. As with the terms " wallaroo" and "wallaby", "kangaroo" refers to a paraphyletic grouping of species. All three terms 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. There are also the tree-kangaroos, another type of macropod, which inhabit the tropic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tree-kangaroo
Tree-kangaroos are marsupials of the genus ''Dendrolagus'', adapted for arboreal locomotion. They inhabit the tropical rainforests of New Guinea and far northeastern Queensland, along with some of the islands in the region. All tree-kangaroos are considered threatened due to hunting and habitat destruction. They are the only true arboreal macropods. Evolutionary history The evolutionary history of tree-kangaroos possibly begins with a rainforest floor-dwelling pademelon-like ancestor. This ancestor possibly evolved from an arboreal possum-like ancestor as is suspected of all macropodid marsupials in Australia and New Guinea. During the late Eocene, the Australian/New Guinean continent began a period of drying that caused a retreat in the area of rainforest, which forced the ancestral pademelons to begin living in a dryer, rockier environment. After some generations of adaptation to the new environment, the pademelons may have evolved into rock-wallabies (''Petrogale'' spp.), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Kangaroo
The red kangaroo (''Osphranter rufus'') is the largest of all kangaroos, the largest terrestrial mammal native to Australia, and the largest extant marsupial. It is found across mainland Australia, except for the more fertile areas, such as southern Western Australia, the eastern and southeastern coasts, and the rainforests along the northern coast. Taxonomy The initial description of the species by A.G. Desmarest was published in 1822. The type location was given as an unknown location west of the Blue Mountains. The author assigned the new species to the genus ''Kangurus''. In 1842, Gould reassigned the species to the genus '' Osphranter'', a taxon later submerged as a subgenus of '' Macropus''. A taxonomic restructure in 2015 in ''Taxonomy of Australian Mammals'' by Jackson and Groves promoted ''Osphranter'' back to genus level, redefining the red kangaroo, among others, as species within the genus ''Osphranter''. This was further supported by genetic analysis in 2019 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
