{"id":24221,"date":"2023-01-24T16:51:31","date_gmt":"2023-01-24T15:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/?p=73510"},"modified":"2023-01-24T19:37:35","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T18:37:35","slug":"why-kangaroos-have-a-pouch","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/rss_feed\/why-kangaroos-have-a-pouch\/","title":{"rendered":"Why kangaroos have a pouch"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Stuart Blackman\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 24 January 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

Marsupials wouldn\u2019t be marsupials without pouches. Their very name derives from the Latin for \u201cpouch\u201d: marsupium<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Like all marsupials, kangaroos are born at a remarkably early stage of development.<\/p>\n

A newborn joey is little more than a mouth and a muscular pair of forelimbs attached to a bean-sized body, which perfectly equips it for its first challenge in life \u2013 to haul itself through its mother\u2019s fur and latch onto a teat in her pouch, where it will complete its development.<\/p>\n

The marsupial pouch probably started out as a simple fold of skin to protect the helpless young while they suckled in a nest.<\/p>\n

The squirrel-like phascogales, or wambengers, have a similar system today. But most marsupials developed more voluminous structures, allowing mothers to carry their dependent young with them in safety at all times.<\/p>\n

Please note external videos may contain ads:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\nThe pouch system might explain why there are no marsupial equivalents of <a href=\"\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/mammals\/whales-dolphins-porpoises-cetaceans-uk\/"\" target=\""_blank"\" rel=\""noopener" noopener noreferrer\">whales<\/a>, <a href=\"\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/how-to\/identify-wildlife\/how-to-identify-british-seals\/"\" target=\""_blank"\" rel=\""noopener" noopener noreferrer\">seals<\/a> or other marine mammals, because of the risk of drowning one\u2019s brood.<\/p>\nThere is, however, one semi-aquatic freshwater species. The South American water opossum has a strong sphincter muscle around the pouch opening, which can be tightened to form a watertight seal.<\/p>\nIntriguingly, male water opossums also have a pouch, although this is used not to carry the young, but to protect the genitals when diving.<\/p>\nMain image: Female kangaroo with a joey in her pouch. \u00a9 Westend61\/Getty <\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Stuart Blackman Published: Tuesday, 24 January 2023 at 12:00 am Marsupials wouldn\u2019t be marsupials without pouches. Their very name derives from the Latin for \u201cpouch\u201d: marsupium. Like all marsupials, kangaroos are born at a remarkably early stage of development. A newborn joey is little more than a mouth and a muscular pair of forelimbs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":24222,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/why-kangaroos-have-a-pouch-scaled.jpg",2560,1708,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/why-kangaroos-have-a-pouch-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/why-kangaroos-have-a-pouch-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/why-kangaroos-have-a-pouch-768x513.jpg",768,513,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/why-kangaroos-have-a-pouch-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/why-kangaroos-have-a-pouch-1536x1025.jpg",1536,1025,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/why-kangaroos-have-a-pouch-2048x1367.jpg",2048,1367,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Stuart Blackman Published: Tuesday, 24 January 2023 at 12:00 am Marsupials wouldn\u2019t be marsupials without pouches. Their very name derives from the Latin for \u201cpouch\u201d: marsupium. Like all marsupials, kangaroos are born at a remarkably early stage of development. A newborn joey is little more than a mouth and a muscular pair of forelimbs…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/24221"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}