ANiMAL MUNDi: The Climbing Kangaroo by TheFrogBag

The Climbing Kangaroo

written by Corinna of TheFrogBag

Photographs courtesy of www.Arkive.org

The fauna of Indonesia is unlike any other. Birds barter for mates with pretty rocks. Lizards grow to monstrous sizes. Fish crawl instead of swim. And, in some places, kangaroos live in trees.

The Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus goodfellowi) is one of these. Also called the ornate tree-kangaroo because of its colorful wooly coat, it rarely ventures to the ground. 

Unlike its better-known terrestrial counterpart, goodfellowi moves slowly when forced to walk on the earth with a top speed of only about five miles per hour. High in the canopy, it’s a different story. With short hind limbs, muscular forearms, and padded, gripping soles on its feet, this is a creature made for climbing. Sharp curved claws propel it upwards while a broad, strong tail acts as a rudder for daring leaps between trees. 

It’s still a kangaroo though, with a marsupial lifestyle to match. The young are carried in a well-protected pouch, safe from falling as mom moves between branches. The babies stay sequestered this way for up to a year, and will continue to nurse for several months even after “fledging”. At two years of age they’re ready to have joeys of their own, and so the cycle continues. 

Nocturnal by nature, tree kangaroos can sometimes be seen at dusk as they emerge to feast on leaves and flowers. Digestion is accomplished with the aid of a scculated stomach since fibrous material would pass too quickly through a smoother gut. At forest boundaries the kangaroos have been known to descend to eat crops and even grass, something that might be necessitated due to their shrinking habitat. 

Logging, mining, oil exploration, and agricultural expansion have all taken their toll on these shy creatures. Hunting burdens them with additional pressures that tree kangaroos can ill afford, and is the main reason they are considered endangered across their range. 

Happily, there is still hope for their survival thanks to a network of nation parkland and their almost total lack of arboreal predators. More direct conservation measures would make a difference though, something that requires more people to understand their plight. 

Want to help? Support sustainably harvested timber. Try to forego palm oil. And tell someone about tree kangaroos today!