By The Way
While visiting Point Malcolm lighthouse you are likely to encounter a significant sized mob of kangaroos on the gentle slopes adjacent the property. They might be getting up to mischief, eating the tops of the newly planted trees there, but they are a treat to see.
By the way, they are definitely Grey kangaroos, and if you look closely you might be able to tell if they are the less common Western Grey Kangaroos.
Fun Facts about the Grey Kangaroo:
The name Kangaroo is a derivation of the word gangurru, the name given to these unusual mammals by the Guugu Yimidhirr people of North Queensland and apparently adopted by James Cook and the early explorers back in the late 1700’s.
While the Latin name ‘big foot ‘ or Macropodidae was used to classify kangaroos, the Ngarrindjerri people of the Coorong have called them ‘Wanggami”, and most Aussies would call them Roos.
Ironically the Ngarrindjerri peoples continue to call their land ‘Ruwi’ pronounced ‘Roo We’. That seems apt since Australia is synonomous with the Kangaroo in many parts of the world and rightly so, since the number of Kangaroos in South Australia alone exceeds our State population!
So Roo it is, since no-one can argue that Australia is synonymous with the Kangaroo!
Western Grey Kangaroo feeding
The scientific name for the Eastern Grey Kangaroo is Macropus giganteus, which suggests that they are rather LARGE ! And indeed they are larger than their cousins, the Western Grey Kangaroos, Macropus fuliginosus, but don’t be deceived, the Western grey males can still be a metre long and weigh up to 55 kilograms!
The Western greys are often called Sooty kangaroos, because their faces are darker in colour. It looks like they have had sooty ash poured over the top of their snouts and if you look closely you can sometimes distinguish a light coloured line of fur along their jaw.
The mature males have another knickname, apart from Sooty, Stinker! This is because they give off an odour that smells like curry ! Apart from smelling really bad and being a very large marsupial (the males can weigh as much as a person) the Western Grey Kangaroos mostly feed at night.
So, when you’re camping at the Narrung Reserve, be careful that you don’t go following what you think, is a curry van, into the middle of a paddock in the dark of night and find yourself surrounded by a mob of gigantic hungry kangaroos !
Don’t panic, they’re herbivores!
by Isa Brown Dec. 2024
