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Kangaroo Madness

Roos in India.

When villagers walking along a road on the edge of a forested village in eastern India first saw three confused, weak and hungry animals, they couldn't believe what they were witnessing.

The animals looked nothing like anything they had seen before. They alerted West Bengal state's forest officials, who told them that the animals were kangaroos - native to Australia but not found in India. The animals were rescued and sent to a wildlife park to be treated. One died later. The villagers were still confused and surprised with what they had seen. Soon, videos of the kangaroos in India went viral.

"How on Earth are kangaroos turning up in West Bengal," a Twitter user asked.

Debal Ray, the chief wildlife warden of West Bengal, tells the BBC that the animals were most likely left in the open during an anti-smuggling operation by his team. When he received a tip-off that some exotic animals were being smuggled into the state, he immediately alerted his team. Acting quickly, the officers started checking vehicles along one of the main routes to enter the state.

"The smugglers probably got wind of it, and abandoned the animals on the highway," Mr Ray said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-61518058
 
Roo on the rampage.

An elderly man has died from injuries after an apparent attack by his pet kangaroo in Western Australia's south.

Paramedics were called to the man's property in Redmond, near Albany on Sunday evening after the 77-year-old was found by a relative with serious injuries.

Police were called to assist after the kangaroo prevented the ambulance crew from accessing the injured man, who died at the scene.

A WA Police spokesman said officers were forced to shoot the marsupial dead because it was posing an ongoing threat to emergency responders.

The man is believed to have been attacked by the kangaroo earlier in the day. Police believe it was a wild animal which was being kept as a pet.

A police report will be prepared for the coroner.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/elderly-wa-man-killed-by-pet-kangaroo/ar-AA11JeFn?
 
Tourists have to fight Muntjacs in Cromer, in WA they are attacked by Roos. Vid at link.

Watch: Tourist fights off feisty kangaroo in Australia​

An American tourist has been filmed helping a woman fend off an aggressive kangaroo in Western Australia’s Cohunu Koala Park.
Courtney Carter told the BBC she had been screaming for help for several minutes before the man stepped in, his son later also joining in.
The situation de-escalated after a staff member arrived to take the animal away.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-australia-65912350
 
Will the hop evolve into a skip and a jump?

The iconic Australian kangaroo hops with its powerful hind legs across the outback or in front of your car at dusk. But scientists say that not so long ago (evolutionarily speaking, anyway), extinct large kangaroos likely used other modes of transportation, like walking on two legs or all fours.

Researchers from the Universities of Bristol and York in the UK and Uppsala University in Sweden used fossil evidence and a new analysis of shin and ankle bone data to find out how macropodoids (kangaroos, wallabies, and their relatives) moved over the past 25 million years.

The team's published review says the signature hop of the famous Qantas Airlines 'flying kangaroo' that "many people regard as the pinnacle of kangaroo evolution", actually represents just one of the many ways these astonishingly mobile animals evolved to be successful in different habitats.

"In fact, modern large hopping kangaroos are the exception in kangaroo evolution," says vertebrate paleontologist Christine Janis from the University of Bristol, lead author of the study.

"Large kangaroos were much more diverse as recently as 50 thousand years ago, which may also mean that the habitat in Australia then was rather different from today."

Kangaroos are the only large mammals that get around primarily by hopping on two legs. This form of locomotion is intriguing to scientists. Janis and her colleagues say much of the research so far has focused on the larger-bodied kangaroos, leaving a gap in our understanding of their smaller-bodied counterparts.

https://www.sciencealert.com/kangaroos-didnt-always-hop-scientists-say
 
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