43 thoughts on “Friday Photo”

  3. From the ‘Aren’t you glad you’re not a female kangaroo?’ file.

    “At the end of the 28 day pregnancy, the expectant mother takes up a sitting position and grooms her pouch. The baby emerges from an opening at the base of her tail called the cloaca. The infant is very tiny, only about the size of a lima bean. It’s pink and largely undeveloped except for its two front arms that are crucial for its climb up its mother’s abdomen to the pouch. The baby, which is little more than a fetus, makes this climb completely unaided and guided only by instinct. Once inside the pouch the baby finds one of its mother’s four nipples and takes the end of one in its mouth. The baby doesn’t have the muscles to suck at this stage. Instead, the nipple swells inside the baby’s mouth so that it can’t disengage and milk is secreted very slowly into its mouth. Later, once the baby’s jaw is more developed, it will be able to disengage and suck at will.

    But the amazing stuff doesn’t stop there. Once mum has given birth, she will mate again and become pregnant only this second baby won’t be born after 28 days like the first one. Instead, the second baby develops until it is a bundle of around 100 cells and then stops growing. It just sits there and waits for the tenant in the pouch to vacate. This ability to suspend a pregnancy is called embyonic diapause and almost all kangaroos and wallabies are capable of it. The advantage to this is that mum can replace a joey very quickly if she loses one.”
    https://kangaroocreekfarm.com/about-roos/

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  4. 1/ Sibling rivalry taken to extremes. 2/ Kangaroo doo leaves Mama Roo with her hands or paws full in the worst kind of way. (Both lousy exmples of the joys of the Animal Kingdom.)

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  11. I can relate to the Tasmanian Devils. As the youngest of five kids, I had to fight for survival every day. Finally I emerged victorious, as the last one remaining (the others had all left home).

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      1. LOL. I was going to mention not wanting to be an elephant, but then a whole bunch of other animals came to mind – horses, cows, rhinos. The list goes one. Then I started thinking about kittens… little sweet things but nine at a time!

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  17. I suppose marsupial society is a patriarchy too; they, too, let the women clear up the s**t. It always seemed to me that dogs had it okay, but then you realise they are hardwired to sniff a**s to work out if they like some other dog or not. Frankly it’s amazing they didn’t die out eons ago.

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