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The Four Great Kangaroos
[1] Although the kangaroo is Australia’s most famous indigenous species, few people outside of the country know many details about the animal. In fact, there are several different kangaroo species, including the western grey kangaroo, the eastern grey kangaroo, the red kangaroo, and the antilopine kangaroo. Though still bound together by traits characteristic of the genus Macropus, the four different types of kangaroo also known as the four “Great Kangaroos,” as they are the largest species in the genus can behave very differently in terms of their native habitats, activities, and migration patterns.
[2] The eastern grey kangaroo lives, as its name implies, on the east coast of Australia. Not only is the eastern grey the most common kangaroo, but it is also the quickest, as the fastest recorded kangaroo was a large female traveling at 40 miles per hour. It is by far the most populous kangaroo species; around ten million eastern greys inhabit the continent. To put that in perspective, Australia’s current human population is only 23 million. The eastern grey prefers to inhabit large open areas of grassland, with shrubbery for daytime shelter, as it forages for food at night. Nevertheless, eastern greys have been seen in various climates, including coastal areas, woodlands, subtropical forests, and mountainous regions.
[3] The western grey is difficult to distinguish from the eastern grey; for many years, the two were thought to belong to the same species. The western grey is distinguished, in the first place, by its habitat, on the west (rather than the east) coast of Australia. Secondly, it is different from the eastern grey in that it is a very vocal species. Mother western grey kangaroos communicate to their offspring, or joeys, with a series of clicking noises, which eastern grey mothers do not do. Though less adaptable than the eastern grey, the western grey can still be found in a variety of habitats, including grasslands, forests, or woodlands near water. Zoologists believe that the population of western grey kangaroos increased dramatically as Europeans settled in Australia, because this led to the creation of more pastures, where members of the species could find their main food source, grass.
[4] Unlike the two species of grey kangaroos, the red kangaroo is found throughout Australia, though there is a concentration of reds in the west corner of New South Wales, in the southeastern part of the country. The red has the ability to store water for periods of time, and so does not need to inhabit the same fertile areas as its grey cousins. Instead, this species can be found in more arid climates, including scrubland and deserts. The species has a remarkable ability to find nutritious food sources even in areas that seem devoid of life. Less social and more nomadic than the grey kangaroos, the red has the distinctions of being the largest of all kangaroos, the largest mammal native to Australia, and the largest living marsupial.
[5] Finally, the antilopine kangaroo breaks the trend among the three greats named for their color, drawing instead from a comparison to the antelope, which zoologists thought the kangaroo resembled with its distinctive appearance. Traveling in packs of up to 30 kangaroos, the antilopine inhabits the northern tropical and western regions of Australia, preferring flat, open lands, though their habitat does sometimes extend to eucalyptus woodlands. Like the eastern gray, the antilopine sleeps under the shade of shrubs during the hottest part of the day, grazing during the evenings from approximately an hour after sunset until 8am. It has the largest range of all the great kangaroo species, and is known to travel up to a third of a mile (76 hectares) from its group’s territory. In the wet season, antilopine females outnumber the males by a ratio of two to one; in the dry season, this increases to three to one.
[6] Even these four species of kangaroos do not fully represent their genus. Although the most populous are the “great” kangaroos, or the largest, there are many other, smaller species (up to 47) found throughout Australia. Like the four greats, these kangaroos are often descriptively named. There are large populations of tree-kangaroos, for example, in wooded areas, as well as various species of rat-kangaroos. If you’re traveling through Australia, keep your eyes open : You never know if you’re actually looking at a kangaroo you never knew existed.
