Mammals · plate 16 of 60
Kangaroo
Osphranter rufus
Hops, boxes, keeps a spare baby on pause.
Only 0.4% of people are Kangaroos. (estimated)
If you're a Kangaroo
You are sociable, physical, and good at pacing yourself. Kangaroos travel in mobs and cover ground with a hop that costs little more energy as it speeds up; you have a similar efficiency about work and a similar fondness for a crowd. You fight only when pushed, and then with both feet. You are rarely caught walking backward.
A red kangaroo can keep an embryo on hold while another joey is in the pouch, and can produce two different milks at the same time for young of different ages.
The Kangaroo as a spirit animal
You are warm, direct, and physically confident. You like having your mob around you and you take care of your own, often several at different stages at once. The flaw is that your way forward is forward; you don't reverse well, you don't idle well, and you settle disagreements with a kick. You do apologize. From a hop away.
Grounded in how the species actually lives; nothing borrowed from anyone's tradition. Why we put it that way.
How to get along with a Kangaroo
Do
- Keep them moving; a kangaroo at rest is a kangaroo thinking about moving.
- Bring the mob; they are at ease in a group and watchful alone.
- Spar if you must, but know a kangaroo kicks with both feet, balanced on its tail.
Don't
- Don't ask them to back up; it is not in the design, physically or otherwise.
- Don't corner one near water; kangaroos can and do fight in it.
When it goes wrong: A cornered kangaroo stands tall, leans back on its tail and kicks; keep your distance and leave it a clear line away.
The Kangaroo in a relationship
You love in the open, among others. Kangaroos form no fixed pairs; a male courts within the mob and the mother does the raising, with one joey in the pouch and another at her feet. You are a devoted parent and a cheerful partner. You would rather hop beside someone than stand still with them.
Field notes
Every animal is placed on six personality traits derived from how the species lives. Your answers are placed on the same six, and the closest animal wins. How the scoring works
- Sociability
- 7
- Boldness
- 6
- Energy
- 6
- Curiosity
- 3
- Devotion
- 7
- Roaming
- 6
- Hopping is remarkably efficient: a kangaroo uses little extra energy as it speeds up, thanks to leg tendons that work like springs.
- A newborn kangaroo is about the size of a jellybean and crawls up its mother's fur to the pouch on its own.
- A kangaroo uses its tail as a fifth leg when walking slowly, pushing off with it like a crutch.
Kangaroos in literature
- The Kangaroo — Dot and the Kangaroo, Ethel C. Pedley (1899)
- Old Man Kangaroo — Just So Stories (The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo), Rudyard Kipling (1902)
- The kangaroo — Birds, Beasts and Flowers (Kangaroo), D. H. Lawrence (1923)
Characters from public-domain works. Company, not a verdict.
Closest personalities
The animals whose profiles sit nearest to the Kangaroo's. If you got Kangaroo, one of these was probably your runner-up.
Other mammals
WolfRed FoxBrown BearPolar BearLionTigerLeopardCheetahElephantGiraffeHippopotamusGorillaOrangutanSlothKoalaPlatypusOtterBeaverBadgerRaccoonHedgehogBatCamelDolphinSperm Whale
Among the 60
Mammalia: Their Various Orders and Habits, Louis Figuier (1870). Public domain, viacommons.wikimedia.org.All credits
