Australia's Western Gray Kangaroo Natural History Illustrations

Summary: Western gray kangaroo natural history illustrations get pale-bellied dark brown hopping boxers grazing grassy, woody south-central to southwest Australia.

two western gray kangaroos (Macropus fuliginosus); Talbot Road Nature Reserve, Swan View, eastern Perth suburb, West Australia, southwestern Australia; Feb. 24, 2011: Jean and Fred (jeans_Photos), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Western gray kangaroo natural history illustrations attend to assembling the available information from live populations, preserved specimens and scientific descriptions into accurate, artistic acknowledgments of one species' behavioral, biogeographical and physical aspects.

Western gray kangaroo natural history illustrations sometimes bring in as additional or supplementary image titles the alternate common names black-faced, mallee, soot and western grey kangaroos. Western gray kangaroos carry the scientific name Macropus fuliginosus ("big-footed, sooty [kangaroo]") as kangaroo members of the Macropodidae kangaroo, pademelon, quokka, tree-kangaroo, wallaby and wallaroo family. The scientific designation defers to scientific descriptions in 1817 by Anselme Gaëtan Demarest (March 6, 1784-June 4, 1838), who discovered discrepancies in displayed eastern kangaroo specimens.

Desmarest's examination of specimens extracted by French explorers from northeastern mainland through southeastern continental and insular Australia elucidated the existence of eastern and western gray kangaroos.

The first late 18th- to early 19th-century English explorers found eastern gray kangaroos from modern-day eastern Queensland southward through present-day Victoria, eastern South Australia and Tasmania.

Captain Matthew Flinders (March 16, 1774-July 19, 1854) while going around the island continent got a specimen from the southern mainland's present Kangaroo Island in 1802. Globally warmed climate change and 19th- through 21st-century land uses head western gray kangaroos ever eastward beyond original homelands through South Australia and New South Wales. Respective northeastern through southeastern and south-central through southwestern distribution ranges isolate eastern and western gray kangaroos whose populations the Murray-Darling river basin integrates but never interbreeds.

Eastern and western gray kangaroos join Australia's continental and insular kangaroo species in breeding and birthing seasons potentially year-round but practically summers, from December through February.

Western gray kangaroo natural history illustrations never keep informational images of females with one embryo in the birthing canal, one pouch-kept newborn and one pouch-kept joey.

Diapause in other species never locks a thin-shelled, white egg into a 100-cell mass until drought or famine lessens or a weaned joey leaves the pouch. Ten-year life expectancies manifest one 31-day gestated 1-inch- (2.54-centimeter-) long, 0.029-ounce (0.9-gram) newborn that moves out of the maternal pouch as one mature, 310-day-old, weaned joey. Newborns, joeys under 11 months and physically and sexually mature adults respectively need low-fat milk, high-fat milk and fresh water and understory and woodland perennial grasses.

Western gray kangaroo natural history illustrations sometimes offer informational images of opportunistic behaviors such as grass- and leaf-grazing grassland, pastureland, scrubland, woodland low shrubs and trees.

Adulthood presents 38- to 88-inch (96.5- to 223.52-centimeter) head-and-body lengths, 17- to 39-inch (43.18- to 99.06-centimeter) tail lengths and 10- to 118-pound (4.54- to 53.52-kilogram) weights.

Physically and sexually mature females and males twice feminine sizes queue up respectively at the lower and higher head and tail length and body weight ranges. Western gray kangaroo maturity reveals dark brown-gray bodies and heads, brown-gray or light gray chests and throats, occasional black patches around the elbow and pale bellies. Physically and sexually mature males smell like curry and start boxing, clawing, kicking while standing on tails, punching, shoving and wrestling matches over females and water.

Western gray kangaroo natural history illustrations tribute kangaroos that the International Union for Conservation of Nature tags as least concern despite kills for crop- and pasture-grazing.

female (right) and male (left) western gray kangaroos (Macropus fuliginosus), drawn from specimens in the Paris and Leyden Museums by English artist and ornithologist John Gould (Sept. 14, 1804-Feb. 3, 1881); John Gould's Mammals of Australia (1863, vol. II: Plate 5 (opposite page 8): Public Domain via Biodiversity Heritage Library

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

two western gray kangaroos (Macropus fuliginosus); Talbot Road Nature Reserve, Swan View, eastern Perth suburb, West Australia, southwestern Australia; Feb. 24, 2011: Jean and Fred (jeans_Photos), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/jean_hort/5475861462/

female (right) and male (left) western gray kangaroos (Macropus fuliginosus), drawn from specimens in the Paris and Leyden Museums by English artist and ornithologist John Gould (Sept. 14, 1804-Feb. 3, 1881); John Gould's Mammals of Australia (1863, vol. II: Plate 5 (opposite page 8): Public Domain via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/49740661

For further information:

Desm. (Desmarest, Anselme Gaëtan). 1817. "Second espèce. -- Kanguroo brun enfumé, Kangurus fuliginosus." Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, Appliquée aux Arts, à l'Agriculture, à l'Économie Rurale et Domestique, à la Médecine, etc. Tome XVII: 35-36, Plate XXII. Paris, France: Chez Deterville, MDCCCXVII.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/18054378

Gould, John. 1863. "Macropus Fuliginosus. Sooty Kangaroo." The Mammals of Australia, vol. II: Plate 5, opposite page 8. London, England: Printed for The Author by Taylor and Francis.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/49740661
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/mammalsAustrali2Goul#page/5/mode/1up

Iredale, T. (Tom); and E. (Ellis) Le G. Troughton. 1934. "A Check-List of the Mammals Recorded From Australia." Australian Museum Memoir, vol. 6 (May 4, 1934): 1-122. Sydney, Australia: The Trustees of the Australian Museum.
Available @ https://australianmuseum.net.au/uploads/journals/17234/516_complete.pdf
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/47102257

Lundie-Jenkins, Geoff. "Wallabies and Kangaroos." In: Michael Hutchins, Devra G. Kleiman, Valerius Geist and Melissa C. McDade, eds. Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia. Second edition. Volume 1, Mammals II: 83-103. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group, 2003.

Marriner, Derdriu. 25 November 2016. "Australia's Antelope Kangaroo Natural History Illustrations." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/11/australias-tropical-antelope-kangaroo.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 2 December 2016. "Australia's Eastern Gray Kangaroo Natural History Illustrations." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/12/australias-eastern-gray-kangaroo.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 9 December 2016. "Tasmanian Eastern Gray Forester Kangaroo Natural History Illustrations." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/12/tasmanian-eastern-gray-forester.html