Home › Amazing Animals › Red Kangaroos
🐾 Red Kangaroos
The biggest jumping animal on Earth lives in the red centre of Australia — and baby kangaroos ride in a pocket.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
📍 Where is it?
📍 Alice Springs, Australia — see it on the big map →
Red kangaroos live in the dry middle of Australia, around places like Alice Springs. They are the biggest marsupials in the world — a big male can stand taller than a grown-up and weigh as much as a large dog, about 90 kilograms.
Kangaroos do not run like other animals. They hop! Their huge back legs work like springs, and their long tail helps them balance. One hop can carry a red kangaroo 9 metres — as long as a classroom is wide. Hopping is also clever because it uses very little energy, which helps in the hot desert.
Baby kangaroos are called joeys. A newborn joey is tiny, about the size of a jellybean, and it climbs into its mother's pouch to grow. It stays in that warm pocket for months, peeking out as it gets bigger and braver.
🤩 Wow fact!
A red kangaroo can hop at about 25 kilometres an hour — faster than a bicycle in town — and leap 9 metres in a single bound.
🧠 Quiz time!
What is a baby kangaroo called?