An extinct kangaroo species arrived from Antwerp to the Budapest Zoo, and the three animals, originally native to the Great Watershed in Eastern Australia, were housed in a common catwalk with the gray giant kangaroos, the MTI Zoo and Botanical Garden said on Friday.
Parma kangaroos (Macropus parma), also known as white-throated kangaroos, are among the smaller species of kangaroos, with adult animals typically weighing between 3 and 6 kg. They usually live alone, but sometimes they can be seen in smaller teams of 3-4 animals. Animals prefer dense undergrowth habitats - read the communication.
As they write, Parma kangaroos were discovered in 1845, but due to foxes and other threats to Australia, the species soon became so rare that by the 1890s, scientists already thought these animals were extinct. More than seventy years later, in 1965, a population of Parma kangaroos was discovered on the island of Kawau in New Zealand, where they were introduced as early as the 1870s, just as they feared to become extinct on the Australian continent. And in 1967, it turned out that smaller stocks had survived in some areas of Australia, New South Wales.
There are about seventy different species of kangaroos in Australia and the surrounding islands, and although their physiques are similar, a number of adaptive trends have developed among kangaroos during their tribal development. There are large species living in open areas that also have a body weight of 50 to 80 clograms, and there are small species in which the weight of adult animals is less than one kilogram. They have groups adapted to the tree-like lifestyle, and they also have species attached to the rocky terrain.
At the Metropolitan Zoo and Botanical Garden, where kangaroos have been practiced since its opening in 1866, the public has seen fourteen different species of kangaroos over the past century and a half. Four species are currently on display, in addition to the Parma kangaroos that have just arrived, red-necked or otherwise known Bennett kangaroos (Macropus rufogriseus), small brush-tailed rat kangaroos (Bettongia penicillata), and western gray giant kangaroos (also known as sooty kangaroos) fulinos. Among the Hungarian zoos, the city park institution presents the most kinds of animals - the summary states.
(Source: marmalade.co.hu; MTI | Image: pixabay.com)