Bennett’s wallaby

About This Project

Using their powerful hind legs and muscled tails, these marsupials, very similar in shape to kangaroos, move from place to place in leaps and bounds and can reach speeds of up to 65 km/h!

After just 29 days’ gestation, the wallaby gives birth to a quite undeveloped foetus, less than 2 cm long, hairless, blind and deaf. It crawls over to the protective pouch on its mother’s abdomen, and fastens on to one of her teats. It won’t finally emerge for another 9 months!

Watch closely: you might see a little head peeping out of one of the females’ pouches!

Latin name: Macropus rufogriseus
Class: Mammalia
Order: Diprotodontia
Family: Macropodidae
Size: 0.9 to 1 m (head + body)
Weight: 13 to 20 kg
Lifespan: 15 years
Gestation: 29 days + 9 months in the pouch
Number of young: 1
Habitat: forest, savannah
Diet: herbivorous
Distribution: coastal areas of eastern and south-eastern Australia, Tasmania.
Conservation status: not at risk

Category
Mammalia