The Wild Reality Behind Kangaroo Pregnancy

Kangaroos and their baby joeys are quite adorable, but the way they develop is frankly a little disconcerting. We humans have a specific idea of what pregnancy and birth entails, but kangaroos and all their fellow marsupials have a very different experience indeed. And really, it can seem almost alien to us.

Lords of Australia

There’s a wide range of marsupials, and most of them live in Australia. In addition to kangaroos, the group in this country includes wombats, Tasmanian devils, and koalas. They’re less dominant in other parts of the world, though, with opossums being the only native marsupials of the North American continent still alive today.

Changing fortunes

Yet long ago, marsupials were really common, even across North America. Here, in fact, they used to outnumber “placental” mammals – an extremely broad category including whales, shrews, dogs, cats, cows, sheep, and yes, even humans. So there was indeed a time when we were the "weird" ones.

Different strokes

There are plenty of similarities between marsupials and their placental mammal counterparts. The two kinds of animals both have hair, for instance, and species from each group bring up their own babies, a parenting strategy which stands in stark contrast to most reptiles. But really, it’s the differences between the two types of mammals where things get interesting.

Bun in the oven

The most distinctive characteristic of marsupials – and kangaroos, by extension – centers around their pregnancies and the development of their young. Sure, both they and the placental mammals nourish their babies with milk and take care of them until they’re older. But there’s also a crazy difference at play in the process.