: any of various herbivorous leaping marsupial mammals (family Macropodidae) of Australia, New Guinea, and adjacent islands with a small head, large ears, long powerful hind legs, a long thick tail used as a support and in balancing, and rather small forelegs not used in locomotion
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Earlier this year, Wallach was issued a summons for violating an Oyster Bay, New York, dangerous animal ordinance after federal, state and local law enforcement found two sloths and a kangaroo in his car outside a coffee shop, according to the New York Post.—Miami Herald, 4 June 2026 Police in Waco, Texas, found themselves in an unusually bouncy pursuit to recapture a runaway kangaroo.—Alexandra Banner, CNN Money, 28 May 2026 Hunting kangaroos and snoozing by the fire The dingo’s bones tell their own story.—ArsTechnica, 18 May 2026 The researchers also say future studies could investigate whether limb preferences in animals such as parrots or kangaroos evolved through similar evolutionary pressures, potentially revealing that handedness-like behavior emerged independently across different branches of the animal kingdom.—Rupendra Brahambhatt, Interesting Engineering, 16 May 2026 See All Example Sentences for kangaroo
Word History
Etymology
Guugu Yimidhirr (Australian aboriginal language of northern Queensland) gaŋurru
: any of numerous leaping marsupial mammals of Australia, New Guinea, and adjacent islands that feed on plants and have a small head, long powerful hind legs, a long thick tail used as a support in standing or walking, and in the female a pouch on the abdomen in which the young are carried