Eating, drinking, defecating and urinating are all done in the bag. Will the baby kangaroo be suffocated by the smoke?

What is it like to stay in a kangaroo mother's pouch?

Kangaroo baby in its mother's pouch | 825545 / Wikimedia Commons

Kangaroo baby: Thank you. It is usually very comfortable. I can sleep and drink milk in it. I don’t even have to walk. But sometimes I get irritated by my own poop and urine… (blush.jpg)

Want to experience it? Touch the inside of your wrist

The inside of a kangaroo mother's pouch is not fluffy, but exposed, very soft skin, similar in texture to the skin on the inside of a human wrist. The temperature in the pouch is maintained at around 40.5 degrees Celsius, which is similar to the mother's body temperature.

This is what the inside of the pouch looks like | Animales Dando A Luz / YouTube

Kangaroo mothers have three vaginas and two uteruses. The vaginas on both sides are responsible for transporting sperm to the uterus. Correspondingly, male kangaroos have two "Y"-shaped penises. The vagina in the middle is the channel for the birth of baby kangaroos.

The baby kangaroos are born when the mother kangaroo is 30 to 36 days pregnant. At this time, they weigh less than 1 gram and are not fully developed. They are full-fledged "premature babies". Newly born kangaroos are translucent and look pink and tender, much like a gummy bear.

Crawling gummy bears | Animales Dando A Luz / YouTube

This "little jellyfish" faces a huge challenge as soon as it is born - crawling into its mother's pouch. At this time, their eyes are not open yet, and they can only rely on their relatively well-developed forelimbs to slowly grope their way around. However, before the baby is born, the mother will lower her head and lick the hair on her abdomen to help the baby open a path.

Find the nipple and start drinking! | Geoff Shaw / Wikimedia Commons

Once the baby kangaroos crawl into their mother's pouch, they will immediately relax, find the nipples, and start sucking the milk that their mother prepared early in the morning. The nipples are the most important facilities in the pouch. Each pouch has 4 nipples, which can provide the most suitable milk for the baby kangaroos at different stages of growth. After all, they spend the first few months of their lives in this pouch.

Eating, drinking, defecating and urinating in the bag... defecating and urinating?

The life in the pouch is so comfortable for the kangaroo baby - wrapped in the mother's body temperature, drinking milk and sleeping, all it has to do is grow up slowly.

In the first 5 to 6 months, the baby kangaroo stays completely in the pouch and does not go out. However, after drinking milk, it naturally needs to pee and poop, so what should it do?

Easy, just do it right there in the pouch… Sometimes, the mother kangaroo will put her whole head into the pouch, which may be to clean the pouch that has been soiled by the baby. She will use her tongue to scrape off the urine, feces and dirt around the baby kangaroo. It is true that you raise your child with your own poop. In addition, the skin surface of the pouch will secrete mucus containing antibacterial substances, which can also reduce the chance of the child getting sick.

The opening of the pouch is upwards and small, so the baby is very safe inside. No matter how the mother jumps, the baby will not be thrown out. Accidents will only happen occasionally when the baby grows from a small ball to a big ball. But it is not a big problem, because the baby kangaroo that is thrown out of the pouch can climb back in by itself.

After 5-6 months of confinement in the pouch, the baby kangaroo pokes its head out of the pouch for the first time and begins to explore the world around it. In the following months, they spend more and more time outside the pouch, returning only to the pouch when they need to drink, take a nap, or avoid danger.

At this time, the pouch gradually becomes unable to hold the whole body of the baby kangaroo, and the shape we often see is the mother kangaroo and the baby kangaroo with its head exposed. The pouch has changed from the original "all-round nursery" to an "open-top baby carriage". At this time, if the mother kangaroo wants to clean the pouch, she is no longer as gentle as before. She will directly kick the baby out first, and then bury her head in the pouch to clean.

Mama Convertible | Tom Lind / Wikimedia Commons

When will a baby kangaroo leave its pouch and live a completely independent life? The timing varies for different species of kangaroos. Red kangaroos (Macropus Rfus) start to leave their pouches when they are 8 months old, but it will take another 3 to 4 months before they stop drinking breast milk and become completely independent. Grey kangaroos (Macropus giganteus) are even more of a mama's boy. They don't leave their mother's pouch until they are 11 months old, and they are not weaned until they are 18 months old.

Even though I went out to play, I still had to come back to eat the loving breakfast made by my mother | Sheba_Also 43,000 photos / Wikimedia Commons

I can still get in if I squeeze in! | nh53 / Wikimedia Commons

Both have bags, but in different styles

Kangaroos are not the only animals that have pouches. Koalas, wombats and other animals also have such pouches, but their styles are slightly different.

Cute wombats also have pouches | JJ Harrison / Wikipedia

The kangaroo's pouch opens upwards, while the wombat's pouch opens downwards. Wombats are burrowing animals, and if the pouch opens forwards, the mother wombat will dig holes and the flying dust will likely enter the pouch and drown the baby.

Wombat calf pops its head out of its pouch | blackbeltjones / YouTube

But if the pouch opens downward, wouldn't the baby fall out while walking? People have thought of this a long time ago! The mouth of the wombat's pouch has muscles that can be contracted, making it like a drawstring bag, so that the baby can stay firmly in the mother's pouch. In addition to the pouch, wombats are also famous for their square poop!

Wombat's special trick: square poop | Bjørn Christian Tørrissen / Wikipedia

Koalas are relatives of wombats. The mother koala's pouch opens forward on her abdomen, neither facing up nor down. After birth, the baby koala stays in the mother's pouch and feeds on milk.

Koala baby emerges | Koala Land / Facebook

After 6 to 7 months, the baby koala sticks its head out of the pouch and eats the soft feces excreted by its mother. These soft feces are "paste-like" food specially prepared by the mother for her child, which is different from the usual dry and hard feces. At this time, the digestive system of the baby koala cannot digest eucalyptus leaves. The soft feces contain special intestinal flora, which can help the baby koala transform its intestines, and then they can eat eucalyptus leaves by themselves. In order to eat the "weaning food" excreted by its mother, the baby koala always sticks its body out backwards, which often makes people mistakenly believe that the koala's pouch opens downwards.

Mom's Transport | Australian Koala Foundation

The young koalas thrive while eating feces, and when they are 9 months old, they can no longer squeeze into the pouch. After that, they will lie on their mother's back until they are about 1 year old, when they will leave their mother and live alone.

In short, no matter what kind of pouch a child is in, their life is carefree and enviable. I just wonder what it feels like to be in Doraemon's pocket...

References

[1]https://www.livescience.com/whats-it-like-inside-a-kangaroo-pouch

[2]https://luckykangaroos.com/en/pouch/

[3]https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/kangaroos-have-three-vaginas

[4]https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/mammals/how-long-do-joeys-stay-in-the-pouch/

[5]https://www.savethekoala.com/about-koalas/life-cycle-koala/

[6]https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/wombat

Author: Cat Tun

Editor: Mai Mai

This article comes from the Species Calendar, welcome to forward

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