Kangaroos Crossing Trivia Quiz

Answer: Australia

Kangaroos are marsupials belonging to the family Macropodidae, a name which means 'large foot'. They are usually considered to be endemic to Australia, although there is one genus, a tree-kangaroo, found in Papua New Guinea. It used to be widely believed that the word kangaroo came from a miscommunication between Joseph Banks and James Cook and local indigenous people living in the area (now called Cooktown) where the two were stranded for nearly two months in 1770 while their ship was undergoing repairs. According to the story, they asked a resident what those animals over there were, and got the response, "Gangurru", which they transcribed as kanguru. So far, this seems to be true.

However, the myth has it that the Guugu Yimithirr word means "I don't understand you". Linguistic research in the 1970s established that it was, in fact, the local word for the animal in question.

Answer: Dusk and dawn

While kangaroos are usually referred to as being nocturnal, many species are crepuscular - most active at dawn and dusk. They usually sleep through the day, avoiding the heat, and become active near sunset. Once they have located a good feeding ground for the night, they tend not to move around too much in the dark.

However, this is absolutely not a hard and fast rule. Many a driver has been surprised by a kangaroo jumping into their headlights in the middle of the night. When they are startled by the sound of a motor vehicle, they often leap randomly, and unfortunately may get involved in a vehicular collision. Damage to cars can be significant, and many country drivers fit 'roo bars' to their cars to protect the radiator and windscreen. If you do injure or kill a kangaroo, you are expected to check to see if it is a female with an infant in her pouch, and contact the appropriate authorities if that is the case.

Many parts of Australia have road signs advising drivers who to contact in the case of injury to a kangaroo.

Answer: Red kangaroo

The red kangaroo is generally the largest member of the kangaroo family, and the largest marsupial found anywhere in the world. It lives in most of Australia, excepting the southern and eastern coastal areas, and tropical forests. It is well suited to life in the harsh Australian outback. Their ability to find fresh vegetation, even when it looks brown and dried out, helps them reduce their need for fresh water. Their kidneys also function to produce highly concentrated urine, again reducing the need for large volumes of fresh water.

An adult male red kangaroo typically has a body and tail length between 2.3 and 2.8 metres. Females are about two-thirds of this size. The largest confirmed specimen was about 2.1 metres tall in standing position, and had a mass of around 90 kg.

Answer: Giant kangaroo

The eastern grey kangaroo is found mostly in eastern Australia, and is more widely seen than the red kangaroo, because it shares its habitat with many humans, who have settled in the more fertile parts of the country. Its range is from the tropical regions of Cape York Peninsula along the east coast down to Victoria, staying mostly on the eastern side of the Great Dividing Range.

In open woodland areas, grey kangaroos can be found in large troops, up to 100 adults per square kilometre. They can be seen quite close to urban areas - visitors to Melbourne only need to drive about 20 km from the centre of the city to reach semi-rural areas where they are abundant.

The kangaroo featured in the Australian television series 'Skippy' was an eastern grey.

Answer: No

Although it has been possible to produce hybrids in captivity with careful breeding programs, there are no recorded instances of inter-species breeding in the wild. It took quite a while for European settlers to realise that the two were in fact distinct species, a problem compounded by the fact that the subspecies of western greys living on Kangaroo Island were thought to be eastern greys by Matthew Flinders and the early French explorers who shipped specimens back to Paris.

Answer: They are the species you can see hopping down the streets of Sydney

There are no kangaroos to be seen on the streets of Sydney, unless there has been some kind of accident. It's a big city, with no grass to attract kangaroos. Antilopine kangaroos live in the northern parts of the country, in open grasslands. Their name means antelope-like, for reasons best known to those who came up with the designation. They show a much bigger difference between males and females than is common for macropods. While it is common for males to be somewhat larger than females, for the antelopine kangaroos it is dramatic - males can be over 70 kg in mass, while females are usually under 30 kg. Their colors also differ, with males having a reddish coat with pale chest and females a light tan to grey coat, again with a slightly paler chest.

The body shape of the antilopine kangaroo is more heavyset than is the case for the other kangaroos, more like a typical wallaroo shape. Its habitat and behavior, however, make it fit more closely with the red and grey kangaroos. Opinion is divided as to whether it is best called a kangaroo or a wallaroo.

Answer: Rocky hills and mountains

The common wallaroo is often called a hill kangaroo, because it is typically found in rocky hills and mountains. It likes steep regions, and uses caves and overhanging rocks for shelter. As well as the shape and texture of its feet, adaptations that help suit it for this life include a solid body with a low centre of gravity and shorter forelimbs than many other macropods. Unlike kangaroos, wallaroos tend to be solitary rather than living in groups.

Answer: Red-necked wallaby

Red-necked wallabies have a grey coat with red fur across the shoulders and neck. They also have a black muzzle and paws, and a white stripe on their cheeks. They are found in scrubland in many parts of eastern Australia, and particularly like areas where farmers have cleared pastures and left patches of trees. They spend the days under the trees, and the nights eating the lush pasture.

Red-necked wallabies have been exported to a number of other countries, and there have been established colonies in places as far from home as the Isle of Man, an island in Loch Lomond, and a forest near Paris. Wallabies shipped to New Zealand and set free in the 1870s now occupy a significant part of the Hunters Hills, and have been declared a pest species in the Canterbury region.

Answer: Joey

Babies of all macropods, and most marsupials, are called joeys. They are born at a very early stage of development and crawl into the maternal pouch, where they attach to a teat and continue to grow for several months before starting to emerge and engage with the world around them. They may stay in the pouch for up to a year in some species, unless another joey is born to displace them earlier.

Wallabies are any macropods smaller than kangaroos which have not been given any other official designation. Rock wallabies are members of the genus Petrogale, which includes a number of species. They are usually found in steep, rocky areas, where they shelter during the day, foraging through the surrounding country at night. They are most active in the hours immediately after sunset and immediately preceding dawn. Like the common wallaroo, they have feet with rough soles (and short claws) to help them keep a grip on the rocks as they hop around them.

Adult male macropods are described as bucks, jacks or boomers; females are does, flyers or jills; when you find a group of them, it is called a mob, a troop or a court. The terms used vary regionally.

Answer: Pademelon

Specifically, he is a Tasmanian, or red-bellied, pademelon, a species now extinct on the Australian mainland. Other species of pademelon are found in forest areas along the east coast of Queensland and New South Wales. The English word pademelon is a corruption of the Dharuk language (formerly spoken in the area near Sydney) word for these small macropods, 'badimaliyan'. As well as being significantly smaller than kangaroos and rock wallabies, pademelons are much more heavy-set than kangaroos, and have tails which are shorter and thicker than those of wallabies.

While pademelons are the smallest group of macropods, they are still a sizable animal. An adult male would be about a metre long from head to tail, and have a mass of around 12 kg. Females are significantly smaller, with an average mass of around 4 kg (roughly the same as a domestic cat).