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The wallaby and the kangaroo are marsupials from australia: after a short period of gestation in the uterus, their offspring finish their development in their mother's abdominal pouch, clinging to the mammary glands for about 9 months until they can venture outside the pouch, at which time the little ones only return to breast-feeding bag.
Both the wallaby and the kangaroo belong to the family macropodidae: They have oversized feet that allow them to jump, which is their only way to move around. Since they live on the same continent and belong to the same infraclass of marsupials and the same family of macropodidae are very similar, but still there are important differences between them.
In this PeritoAnimal article we will explain what the differences between wallaby and kangaroo.
The size
Kangaroos are much bigger than wallabies: the red kangaroo is the largest species of marsupial in the world, the biggest are always the males and can measure more than 250 cm from the tip of the tail to the head and weigh about 90 kg, while the biggest wallabies measure about 180 cm and weigh about 20 kg. To get an idea, consider that a female wallabie weighs about 11 kg while a female kangaroo weighs about 20 kg.
paws and habitat
Kangaroo's legs are longer in relation to the rest of your body, especially the ankle-to-knee segment is longer, which makes them look disproportionate.
The kangaroo's long legs allow it to jump with speed in open fields where it usually travels at around 20 km/hour and can even exceed 50 km/hour, while the wallabies' more compact body allows them to move with agility through the woods.
teeth and food
O wallaby lives in woods and feeds mainly on leaves: so it has flat premolars for crushing and crushing the leaves, and its incisors are more pronounced for occasional cuts.
while the kangaroo it loses its premolars in adulthood and its molar row forms a curve, its teeth are grooved and the crowns of its molars are more pronounced. This teething allows cut branches of tall grass.
Color
O wallaby there is usually one more vivid and intense color, with patches of different colors, for example the agile wallaby has colored stripes on its cheeks and at the level of the hips, and the red-bodied wallaby has a gray body but with white stripes on the upper lip, black paws and a red band on the upper lip. males.
The change of hair of the kangaroo used to be a lot more monochromatic with color patterns evenly distributed on your body. The gray kangaroo has hair that fades from its darker back to its lighter belly and face.
Also know the difference between hare and rabbit in this article by PeritoAnimal.
reproduction and behavior
Both species have a single offspring per pregnancy and the mother carries her child in her bag not only until it is weaned, but until it is completely independent:
- A juvenile wallaby is weaned at 7-8 months and usually stays another month in its mother's purse. It reaches sexual maturity at 12-14 months.
- The small kangaroo is weaned at 9 months and stays in its mother's purse until 11 months, it will only be able to reproduce when it reaches the age of 20 months.
Both the kangaroo and the wallaby live in small groups of families, consisting of a dominant male, his group of females, his offspring and sometimes some immature and submissive male. It is much more common to see wallabies fighting than kangaroos, usually fighting with their partner.
Hope of life
Kangaroos live much longer than wallabies. Wild kangaroos live between 2’0-25 years and in captivity they live from 16 to 20 years, while wild wallabies live between 11-15 years and 10-14 years in captivity. Both species are prey to man, who hunts kangaroos for their meat, and kills wallabies for their skin.
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