I'll box your ears! Angry mother kangaroo pictured telling off her naughty joey

By Daily Mail Reporter


This cheeky young kangaroo won't be misbehaving again after what looked like a stern telling off from his long-suffering mum.

In an uncannily human-like show of emotion, the female appears to dish out some tough love to her offspring.

She is seen grabbing the joey by the shoulders in what looks like an attempt to catch his attention.

In other pictures, she towers menacingly above the startled youngster and even appears to point a warning finger at him as he squirms out of her pouch.

I'll box your ears: This mother kangaroo seemed to be very frustrated with her joey in Yuraygir National Park in the New South Wales, Australia


The scene between mother and baby were caught on camera by John Eastcott and Yva Momatiuk.

The married couple, from the Catskill Mountains, in New York State, America, were visiting the Yuraygir National Park in New South Wales, Australia.

And they were lucky enough to find this Eastern Grey kangaroo female with her offspring.

Yva said: 'This was one of two females with young joeys. The mothers were grazing in short grass and periodically resting, while the babies kept sticking their heads and legs out of the pouches.

'The scene was very peaceful and had an intimacy of a nursery - mamas and babies enjoying a warm day in the sun.

'We stayed with the kangaroos all day and when evening came the action got more vigorous.

Chastised: The little joey looks terrified of his mother as he bends away from her

'The joeys began to scramble out of the pouches, jump around in the grass, interact with their mothers, and then jump back in.

'It was great fun to watch, and since we moved gently the mothers ignored our presence, which made us happy.

'The young joeys learn to use their long limbs and improve their sense of balance by jumping in and out of their mothers' pouches.'

She added: 'Getting such intimate pictures with the animals interacting and not paying attention to the photographers was most rewarding.



source:dailymail

Kangaroo leaves owner, 80, in hospital after knocking him to the ground and brutally assaulting him for 15 minutes

By Lee Moran


The 80-year-old owner of an exotic animal farm was hospitalised after he was subjected to a brutal 15 minute assault - by a kangaroo.

John Kokas was repeatedly punched in the face and upper body by the aggressive 6ft, 200lb three-year-old red male.

He had reared the animal, which had never attacked before, since it was six months old - but now faces having to put it down.

A woman called 911 at 10.50am saying her father-in-law had been attacked.

Breathlessly, she told the dispatcher who had asked what was going on: 'My father-in-law got hurt by an animal, bad.'

When asked what his injuries were, she replied: 'All over. I don't know how to explain it, but it's bad.'

The surprised dispatcher was then told it was a kangaroo that had caused the incident.

Experts believe Tuesday's attack, at the Kokas Exotics Animals Farm outside Green Camp, Marion County, Ohio, occurred because the beast was protecting a female on heat.

Mr Kokas, who set up the business in 1978 and also breeds a host of other animals for San Diego Zoo, was taken to Grant Medical Center, Columbus, for treatment. He is now said to be in a 'stable' condition.

Columbus Zoo Head Keeper Adele Dodge said that, irrespective of the animal's weight, any kangaroo had the potential to cause serious harm.

Supplier: Kokas Exotics Animals Farm was set up in 1978 and breeds a host of animals for San Diego Zoo


Pictured: It is not known whether the kangaroo in these photos, taken from the farm's Facebook page, is the one that assaulted John Kokas


She said: 'If they feel threatened, they want to move away, if they don't have that option then something else is going to come into play.'

Marion County Sheriff's Office said no criminal investigation was taking place and called the incident an 'unfortunate accident'.

According to the Kokas Exotics Facebook page, the company sells baby skunks, groundhogs and foxes, along with other animals. They also have a kangaroo.




source:dailymail

How the kangaroo got its hop: Origin of animal's iconic bounce found by scientists sequencing its DNA for the first time

By Daily Mail Reporter


They are one of the world's most unique animals as well as the iconic symbol of Australia.

Scientists have finally got to the bottom of why the kangaroo acts and looks like it does, and more importantly have unveiled the secret of its hop.

By sequencing its DNA for the first time, a team of international academics has also got to understand how the species has evolved over 130million years.

Hop to it: Scientists have finally got to the bottom of why the kangaroo bounces along after sequencing its DNA for the first time


They achieved this by focusing on a very small species of kangaroo, the tammar wallaby - Macropus eugenii - that lives quietly on small islands off Australia's southern and western coastlines.

In addition to zeroing in on its hop genes, other exciting discoveries from the genome included the 1,500 smell detector genes responsible for the tammar wallaby's excellent sense of smell, and genes that make antibiotics in the mother's milk in order to protect kangaroo newborns from E. coli and other harmful bacteria.

It is only the third marsupial to have its genome sequenced after the Tasmanian devil and the South American opossum.

Experts say the first kangaroo genome is a huge moment for scientific discovery, telling them how ancestors of kangaroos and other marsupials evolved from other mammals.

'The tammar wallaby sequencing project has provided us with many possibilities for understanding how marsupials are so different to us,' said Marilyn Renfree from the University of Melbourne.

Professor Renfree was one of the lead researchers on the project, which was conducted by an international consortium of scientists from Australia, USA, Japan, England and Germany.


The kangaroo is only the third marsupial to have its genome sequenced after the Tasmanian devil and the South American opossum


Tammar wallabies have many intriguing biological characteristics.

For example, the 12 month gestation includes an 11 month period of suspended animation in the womb.

At birth, the young weigh only half a gram, and spend 9 months in the mother's pouch, where the newborn babies reside for protection.

Researchers hope that the genome sequence will offer clues as to how tammar wallaby genes regulate these fascinating features of kangaroo life.

Professor Renfree added lessons to be learned from the tammar wallaby genome 'may well be helpful in producing future treatments for human disease.'

They also plan to look at how the kangaroo's genome sequence is complemented by the 'transcriptome' sequence, which represents a catalogue of how strongly each gene is turned 'on' or 'off' at different stages of the tammar life cycle and in different parts of the body.

Study of the transcriptome will allow many more interesting questions to be asked about how kangaroo genes compare to their counterparts in humans.

The findings are published in the Biomed Central journal, Genome Biology.



source:dailymail

Hop-pily ever after: Bernie the kangaroo joey brought back to life by his rescuer with a kiss

By TED THORNHILL

Claws for thought: Bernie can consider himself the luckiest kangaroo alive after being brought back to life by Lisa Milligan


A baby kangaroo was brought back from the dead after being given the kiss of life by a wildlife carer.

So young that it hadn’t even grown hair yet, the joey - the name given to baby kangaroos - was rushed to a rescue centre after it was found lying lifeless by the side of a road near Melbourne, Australia.

The tiny pink animal was cold to the touch, but Lisa Milligan didn’t give up hope. She breathed air down its nose and mouth and massaged its heart until it suddenly came to.

‘It was gone for all love and money. It wasn’t breathing. It was icy to touch and rigid,’ Ms Milligan told Australia’s Herald Sun newspaper.


I love roo: Bernie gives his saviour, Lisa Milligan an affectionate nibble


‘But I kept going and after 15 minutes, it suddenly barked, which is what they do. And it started turning from a lifeless grey colour to perfect pink again.’

Ms Milligan has settled on calling the four-month-old creature Bernie, having concluded that naming him Lucky would be plain unlucky.

‘I think Bernie will suit him, after the movie Weekend At Bernie's,’ she told the paper.

He was found by the side of a road next to his dead mother, who had been killed by a collision with a car.

Ms Milligan, who works at the Wildlife Rescue Centre at Kilmore, near Melbourne, explained that a passer-by had dragged the body of the adult to the side of the road so that his daughter would be spared from seeing it on her journey to school the next day.


In the pink: Bernie has been given a blanket that matches his colouring to nestle in


It was then that he noticed the joey lying worryingly still not far away.

Praying that there was a hope he could be saved, the kind-hearted motorist dashed to the wildlife centre, where Ms Milligan saved him.

Kangaroos are particularly vulnerable near roads as engine noise and bright headlights surprise them and cause the energetic creatures to bound into oncoming traffic.

Such is the damage a kangaroo can cause a car that many are fitted with protective ‘roo bars’.

Sadly, because joeys travel in the pouches of their mothers, they too are often victims of collisions.


source: dailymail

A zoo in Amneville

A picture taken on April 21, 2011 at a zoo in Amneville shows one of the mountain sheep babies borned lately at the zoo.



A picture taken on April 21, 2011 at a zoo in Amneville shows a Humboldt Penguin.



A picture taken on April 21, 2011 at a zoo in Amneville shows an Orangutan.



A picture taken on April 21, 2011 at a zoo in Amneville shows one of the three babies kangourou wallaby borned lately at the zoo carried by its mother.



A picture taken on April 21, 2011 at a zoo in Amneville shows one of the three babies kangourou wallaby borned lately at the zoo carried by its mother.



A picture taken on April 21, 2011 at a zoo in Amneville shows two mountain sheep babies borned lately.



A picture taken on April 21, 2011 at a zoo in Amneville shows one of the three babies kangourou wallaby borned lately at the zoo carried by its mother.


source: daylife
photo: Gettyimages

The secret of how kangaroos bounce revealed by 'Lord of the Rings' infrared technology

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Captured: Reflections from small markers on the kangaroo are used in motion-capture to record movement


Hollywood technology used to bring Gollum to the screen in the Lord of the Rings blockbusters has been used by scientists to understand how kangaroos bounce.

Experts have been puzzled as to how the animals - especially when they become larger - are able to attain high speeds without breaking their bones.

But by using motion-capture technology, which records and analyses information from markers stuck on to the body, and infrared lights which illuminate the animals, they have been able to track their motion and force.


Motion: Infrared technology illuminate the subject and help researchers track the kangaroo's bounce


The motion-capture technique has previously been used to help golfers perfect their swings, and translate actor Andy Serkis' movements into Gollum in the celluloid trilogy.

However, the technique is not normally used outdoors because of the amount of infrared light from the sun, and so the Anglo-Australian research team utilised technology from Vicon to enable them to focus on kangaroos, screening out the ambient light.

The researchers are from the Royal Veterinary College in London, the University of Idaho, the University of Queensland, and the University of Western Australia, and hope their studies can be used in animal treatments and for conservation.

Craig McGowan of the University of Idaho told the BBC they wanted to find out how kangaroos change posture and 'hopping mechanics' with body size.


Monitor: A researcher monitors the kangaroo as it hops along a canvas tunnel during the experiments


'There are a number of species that, as they get larger, adopt more and more upright postures,' he said.

'That reduces the mechanical demands on the musculature - so it increases their mechanical advantage.'

The team's investigations - which also use the more usual method of high-speed video - were undertaken at Alma Park Zoo in Brisbane.


Wizardry: Motion-capture technology translated actor Andy Serkis' movements into Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy


Alexis Wiktorowicz-Conroy, researcher at the Royal Veterinary College, says they hope the experiments will explain how the animals manage to run so efficiently, and why they do not hurt themselves as they gain speed.

'We want to know how are they able to hop fast - even when they are quite heavy - and not change posture," she told BBC News.

'That's important, because these animals get really big, and we can't really explain without this why their bones don't break at high speeds.'

source: dailymail