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The Kangaroo’s Tail is Actually a Leg

The kangaroo appears to have 4 legs and a tail.

And for the most part, that’s true.

But if we were to get technical, a walking kangaroos actually has 5 legs and no tails.

Confused?

To understand this, we have to first understand the what makes a leg a leg.

A leg is a limb whose purpose is to propel its owner in a certain direction.

For example, we walk by pushing our legs backwards, which propels our body forwards.

A kangaroo’s tail actually has the exact same purpose. It’s not used for balancing like a cat’s tail, or grabbing items like a monkey’s. A kangaroo doesn’t use its tail to communicate with other kangaroos like how beavers will slap the water with their tails to warn of incoming dangers.

Instead, the walking kangaroo uses its tail exclusively as a limb to generate power to propel its body forward.

In fact, research into this subject matter as found that the tail in a kangaroo exerts more power than the other 4 of its legs combined.

What can you do with this information? Truthfully, nothing. Just like the rest of the content I post.

source: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsbl.2014.0381

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