There are about twelve species of Tree Kangaroos , but only two species are found in Australia - Lumholtz’s tree-kangaroo (Dendrolagus lumholtzi) and Bennett’s tree-kangaroo (Dendrolagus bennettianus). Most of the other species are from New Guinea and nearby islands. The Australian species are fairly easy to distinguish - Lumholtz’s tree-kangaroo has pale coloured band across the forehead and down each side of the face.

Tree Kangaroos spend most of their time in trees and feed on leaves and fruit.  They have long and well muscled forearms with curved claws on the front feet, and short broad hind feet with soft pads to assist with climbing.  They can leap several metres from branch to branch and can jump down to the ground from 15m.

Unlike ground dwelling kangaroos, Tree Kangaroos can move their hind legs independently without hopping in a foot over foot action.

The Australian species have been added to OzAnimals.com.

Click here for more info on Bennett’s Tree-kangaroo
(Dendrolagus bennettianus)

Click here for more info on Lumholtz’s Tree-kangaroo
(Dendrolagus lumholtzi)

On the OzAnimals.com site we also have Goodfellow’s Tree-kangaroo (Dendrolagus goodfellowi). This species is from Papua New Guinea, but can be seen in a number of Australian zoos and wildlife sanctuaries.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 at 8:41 pm and is filed under Mammals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.