FACTORALY - E86 KANGAROOS

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

Kangaroos are weird. They move differently, give birth differently, and they even communicate differently. They're absolutely fascinating. And this episode is different, too. It's a three-hander where we're chatting with our friend on the spot, Gregory Dwyer, all about these extraordinary Australian animals. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello Bruce. Hi Simon. How are you today? I'm recovering still. Still? Still. Honestly, these colds lasting longer and longer these days, aren't they? I know, it's ridiculous. Terrible. It's really sad. It's like four episodes now. Yes, can't help it.

I sound okay though, I think. Oh, you sound great. Yeah. In between the splutters. In between the coughing. And hello to everyone listening to us from wherever you are. My name is Simon Wells.

My name is not Simon Wells. For now, we'll call you Bruce Fielding because it's easy. Okay, that's my nom de podcast. That'll do it, yeah. And we are here together. We are both professional voiceover artists. We do voicey stuff for a living. And then we come here and we do more voicey stuff just for the fun of it. Bruce and I are fact loving nerds. Sadly. Happily. Each week we come here onto Fact-Aurally, we pick a random topic and we chat about it for about half an hour and see if we can pick

any interesting things out of it for you guys at home to listen to. Yeah, our subject this week has fallen down a well. Oh, what's that sound? I heard something in the background. Is that you, Skip? What's that? You're actually a voiceover artist named Gregory Dwyer? Excellent. Let's bring him in. So this week we are joined by the fabulous Greg Dwyer. Hello, Greg.

Hello, Simon. G'day, Bruce. G'day. Oh, I've been wanting to say that for ages. I could never quite muster the cultural appropriation of doing it. So thank you. We've got it. I thought it was the only time we get to do it. Welcome to the University of Walla Mallu.

So whereabouts are you, Greg? I'm in Queensland, Australia. The state on the eastern side up the top goes up to the pointy bit, for those people who don't know. And how's the weather with you? We have actually had a brilliant day of sunshine except it was very hot because we were drafting some of the cattle so it was pretty intense work. I bet. So Bruce, this week's episode. Yeah. What are we doing? So what we're doing is we are jumping to it with an episode on kangaroos. You know there's got to be a reason why we brought Greg in.

Our native expert. So kangaroos eh? As they were called here, the gangaru, which was the black kangaroos of Cooktown. Very good. So it's not true that they were called, I don't know? No, that's that lovely myth that goes with it, yeah. The Cooktown kangaroos were black kangaroos and they were called gangaru, whereas like Sydney used to refer to them as Yonka or Thuru. Ah, okay.

Okay. And Gungaru comes from a local language which I'm going to completely mispronounce. Gugul Yomadir? Gugul Yomata. Yomata. Okay, there we go. And I've probably pronounced it incorrectly as well because You can have a local dialect. When I was working up the Cape we had a word in the community I was in, Inwick Malkin, and then if you went

30 k's down the road that same word had a totally different meaning. But in the great tradition of apocrypha being real, what's the story about I don't know? When they first saw the kangaroo, Europeans had never seen a kangaroo of course, and so they were first meeting some of the local people and kangaroos often come down to the beach areas and because the sailors were on the beach areas, they saw this animal and asked as best they could, what's that? And apparently the local person said kangaroo, which means I don't know. And of course, that's where that lovely mythology began on that story. Yeah, I'd much rather believe that it's more enjoyable, more enjoyable, more

fun. But I love the idea of, you know, Captain James Cook, heading to Queensland in 1770 and seeing this weird creature for the first time and just accepting, you know, the first person who gave them a name for it. So what is a kangaroo, Simon? It's one of those big jumpy things that you find in Australia, isn't it? It's a marsupial. It's a marsupial, yeah. Marsupials are weird, I've come to the conclusion.

There are sort of quite a lot of animals that are marsupials And they include kangaroos wallabies one bats koalas Tasmanian devils bandicoots possums and bilbies I've never heard of a bilby. Oh, bilbies are great. Are they they try to replace the bilby in Australia for Easter as the Easter bilby rather than the Easter rabbit Because bilbies have very big ears. Okay ears and they're a small burrowing creature out here in Australia. Right, oh that's fantastic. Apparently delicious.

Is it? Well, chocolate ones apparently. But apparently marsupials, their defining feature is that they give birth to a not completely formed offspring and then they continue to develop within their mother's pouch and that's something that only marsupials do. So you sort of get this tiny little pink thing inside the mother's pouch that just pretty much looks like an embryo and then it carries on growing and turning into a proper baby. Well it actually yeah it leaves the technically it leaves the clocker and climbs as this little jelly bean sized embryo it climbs up to the pouch

from the tail of the mother the base of the tail. So you sort of imagine that at that sort of size and what effort it takes. Yeah, but the mother I mean I love this reproduction thing on on kangaroos because they can sort of be perpetually pregnant but not actually give birth. And they can also give birth to two independently over a period of weeks. So you get one which is maturing at a different rate to the other and the mother can give different milks to the different joeys. And she can actually have five young in a year because it's such a short gestation period. So she can have one out of the pouch, one in the pouch, one in suspension and one in

development and then soon as that one's gone they rotate out. And if it's a really bad season of course they can suspend the growth of the embryo. Wow, that's a full-time job. Kangaroo motherhood. Absolutely. This is probably why they outnumber Australians three to one. Three to 1? In the known cultivated statistics, yes.

Do you think there's even more then? Oh yes. Really? It's like, you know, that's that lovely thing they say about camels. We have more camels in Australia than they do in the entire Saudi Arabian area. And then when you think, no, you know, I'll never see a camel until you get out in the wild. Please see our episode on camels. Yes.

I was just going to say that. There you go. So apparently kangaroos, or at least kangaroo-like animals, have been around for quite a long time. All kangaroo-related things, so kangaroos, wallabies, that sort of thing, can all be traced back about 24 million years to a common ancestor called the Paleopetorus, which is Latin for roughly speaking ancient rat kangaroo. Okay, great name. Much smaller, thinner tail, but it still looks kangaroo-y. And you know we used to have a giant kangaroo in Australia.

Did you? Yeah, which is part of that whole Dipperatodontia. Sure. How big was this then? 12 feet. Flippin' heck. Wow. That's a big old kangaroo.

You two standing on each other's shoulders, basically. Oh, man. You wouldn't want to hit that with a ute. Speaking of that, I read a statistic that nine out of ten animal road collisions involve a kangaroo. You reckon that's not right Greg? Road related deaths, so like if you take 2020, there were 541 animal related deaths in Australia. And there were- Is that the animal dying or the human being dying? No, that's animal related as in causing the death of a human. Gotcha.

In the statistics. So 37 involved kangaroos. The biggest killer in Australia of people are horses. Oh really? Yes. Yes. Because I think it was 157 horse related deaths, people falling off horses, hit by horses, crushed by horses, you know. I mean when you think sharks only kill 27, the fact that

kangaroos are responsible for 37, you know. That's quite a good stat. And so because of the kangaroo presence on the roads, I believe you have something called roo bars on your cars. Oh yes. roads, I believe you have something called Roo Bars on your cars. Oh yes. Yes, I even have one on the vehicle I've just traveled around Australia a couple of years ago and you know, I was just sort of looking at a piece of footage of the kangaroo about 20 meters away from us going along when we're going through South Australia and this kangaroo's

just pacing the car. We're doing about 65, 70 and he's come down this hill and he's just pacing along and then he just decided he wanted to go to the other side of the car. We're doing about 65, 70 and he's come down this hill and he's just pacing along and then he just decided he wanted to go to the other side of the road and I kid you not 70 degree change kept the same speed up within two and a half bounds he was in the middle of the road and gone. Wow. They can be faster than racehorses and they can go like 44 miles an hour. Particularly on short distances. Yeah but I used to travel between Cullumulla and Charleville a lot with my previous occupation and until they put up the exclusion fences, you know, it was not unusual to see 100 to

200 in the 200 kilometres just standing either standing at the side of the road or suddenly crossing and of course travelling at night I used to say to people you're travelling at 100 kilometres an hour or 80 in some of the zones. And it's like passing through a school zone. You imagine doing that at 80 kilometres an hour at three o'clock in the afternoon. Yes. That's what it's like because these animals are just, they just suddenly think, I'll jump across the road now.

There's, I can see the road with the lights. Wow. I had one car written off in one night from three different collisions. So I lost the front, I lost the side door and I lost the driver's door they're mainly nocturnal though aren't they? Yeah they lie around a lot during the day that lovely thing just lying on the side in the shade of a tree on the hot part of the day. What's that thing? Simon, you had a word for animals that like that point between... Oh, yeah.

Come on, Brains. Is it diurnal? Yes. Yes. So they sort of like dusk time. They like the evenings. So they're diurnal. Well remembered.

Thank you. Very nicely remembered. We drove from a location, South Queensland, heading up, back up to base. There were three vehicles traveling almost as a convoy, and there would have been 250 plus kangaroos and it was right on sunset and so we had the Sun right in our eyes and suddenly these animals just started coming between the three cars and it was like just stop no no point trying to drive because they're not gonna get out of our way and just waited

till they all went past Yeah because I heard that sunset was was the most dangerous thing in Australia because it sort of blinds you as you're driving along Right, so mix that with a troop of kangaroos and and you've got issues Troop. Yeah or a mob of kangaroos now. Yes. You got you. You got a herd a mob What was the other one a true troop. A troop. Yeah. And a court. A court? Court of kangaroos? You can say a court of kangaroos but a kangaroo court is something else of course. Yeah. Oh I see fine. Okay. That's what I thought you were getting at. Right. No no you can actually say it's a court of kangaroos when they're traveling as

a group. Right. If you don't say mob, but it's generally referred to as a mob. Okay. But yeah, and we know what a kangaroo court is. Fine. Yeah, that's something else. So, we're talking about them being fairly dangerous on the road. They're quite dangerous in water as well, apparently. They can swim, can't they? They can swim quite well.

They can swim a long way. They've been seen like seven miles offshore in Australia. No! Yeah! Huh. They're known to avoid their predators quite often by running into the water like dingoes or something. And if the dingoes come in after them, they've actually been known to hold the dingoes' heads underwater and drown them. Really? Yes. coming after them, they've actually been known to hold the dingo's heads underwater and drown them. Really?

Yes. Wow. I read somewhere that if they're really in a bit of an argument with a dingo, they've been known to sort of clamp the dingo's head in its forearms and kick so violently with their hind legs that they could actually disembowel said dingo. What a way to go, eh? Disemboweled by kangaroos. Well, it's better than boxing. Yes, go on. Because kangaroos were renowned for their boxing prowess. Yeah.

They're pretty good. If you have a look on YouTube, you'll see any number of boxing kangaroos videos, not just boxing each other, but people who've thought, oh, go and have a go at this kangaroo. And you watch this kangaroo deal with this person, it's like, yeah, their aggression factor can be huge. And you're dealing with sometimes even a gray kangaroo like the Western gray is you know he's six foot tall yeah if he stands up they've recently seen some that are nearly nine feet tall wow and you know and you think hang on their feet are one third their height so you're getting hit

with a three foot sledgehammer in the stomach. Wow. That's not great. And the place to see that of course would be on the blog on factorally.com. Factorally.com? That's where I put lots and lots of very useless information and stuff that sends you down. Well kangaroos don't live in holes do they? No. Rabbit holes.

So it would be a rabbit hole. Could be a bilby hole. Oh it could be a bilby hole. Yeah. I'll. Could be a bilby hole. Oh, could be a bilby hole. Yeah. I'll send you down the bilby hole. There you go. And if you'd like to know what a bilby hole is, go to Factorally.com and you'll find out.

So we've talked about mobs, courts, troops, etc. There seem to be quite a lot of different names and terminology for kangaroos. So male kangaroos are called Bucks or Boomers or Jacks. Females are called Does, Flyers or Jills and the young'uns are called Joies. Do we know why a young kangaroo is called a Joey? No, I bet you do. No I don't. That was a genuine question. I looked it up and there's no definitive answer. I looked it up and there's no definitive answer. We've talked about them going around in herds or troops or courts.

How do they communicate with each other? In a thick Australian accent? I don't know. It's actually their communication is very much similar to, you know, the concept you'll see with rabbits. They don't bang the ground, but they will, from a low position, they will come up fully erect. And when you see one do it, you suddenly see three or four others will all do it exactly

the same. Oh, so it's visual, like meerkats. Like a meerkat, yeah, like a visual thing. And they will, once, soon as one starts to move, you'll see three, even if the others don't know what's going on, they'll all just start following the movement. Right. But there's no no apparently there's no real vocal communication between them right but you know when you hear them go past you can see why they've picked up the vibration something's happening and

we're all moving so what so the clicky thing is is that just between mothers and Joey's just between jewels between us yeah family small family yeah right it's not a thing that they do over distance or anything like that with each other. Right. And of course it's something that they use to communicate impending danger with young human beings on TV shows. Oh yes. Oh, we're going to talk about Skippy. Well, it's the kangaroo in the room, isn't it? It was going to happen sooner or later. So tell me about Skippy. Well, I'm going to actually play the youth card here

and say that I've never seen an episode of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo because I'm just too damn young. So over to you guys. Well, Skippy was a rescue. The dad was a ranger and the family were living out in the bush and the dad flew a helicopter, which was probably one, the dad was a ranger and the family were living out in the bush and the dad flew a helicopter which was probably one of the big attractions for the TV series. Right. So you've got a lot of aerial and you've got a lot of

helicopter action you know flying and landing in these strange places and in amongst the wildlife. Yeah. But they had a communication so as Bruce mentioned you know down a well. Yes. Yes. You know, it was like the Australian equivalent of Lassie Lassie. Yeah. Yes. You're very good. Isn't it or flipper? Oh, yes And then of course they remade flipper in Australia recently Did they um, yeah using some of the dolphins from SeaWorld? It was filmed here and it didn't succeed as well as the original for some reason. Yeah I've just realized as we were saying this

I've actually always had the theme tune of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo mixed up with Flipper so in my head it goes Flipper, Flipper, Flipper the Bush Kangaroo. So apparently Skippy ran from 1968 to 1970. It had 91 episodes. Is that all? Yeah. For something that became ubiquitous. It's sort of like Faulty Towers, isn't it? You think Faulty Towers went on for decades, but there were only about 13 episodes, weren't there? Yes, 12. 12. Not very many.

Not very many. So do, I mean, was any of that based on real experience? Are kangaroos known for communicating with you? For rescuing people down wells? No. Not at all. Entirely fictitious. based on real experience, are kangaroos known for communicating with humans? For rescuing people down wells? No. Not at all. Entirely fictitious. There's a very big movement about the time of the show. People like Harry Butler in the wild, he would go out on his walking treks and he'd reach down a hole and pull out a goanna or something,

and it became a real wildlife interest. There was an attraction now that koala wasn't considered active enough to be a major character in a TV series. And then someone came up with the idea of, well, why not a kangaroo? Because we've got our national parks and wildlife people sort of trying to raise the awareness of parks and wildlife. And it became a bit of a character idea and of course a very Australian symbol. Well, it's on the money now, isn't it? Stamps? Oh yes, kangaroos on money. And it became a bit of a character idea and of course a very Australian symbol.

Yeah. Well it's on the money now isn't it? Stamps? Oh yes, the kangaroos on money. I think the Royal Air Force have kangaroos as one of their emblems. The Royal Australian Air Force? Yes. Well, you know our coat of arms of course is a kangaroo and an emu.

Oh is that right? Okay. Yes, so you've got the kangaroo and the emu and it's quite funny because you've got what Edward VII and George V, was it? Yes, could be. Yes. So George V approved the coat of arms, the original coat of arms, which was a kangaroo and an emu holding a shield with a sheep export and a wheat export. And that was in about 1907. And then in 1912, they redesigned it because the states complained that they had no

Representation because it only represented Victoria in New South Wales, right? So they redesigned it now put a box jellyfish on it But what happened was when you think about it, why did they choose the emu and the kangaroo because they're delicious brilliant Because they were English and they didn't know better? No, because neither of those two animals can walk backwards. That's true. Okay. So they wanted Australia to be a forward-going nation so they chose chose those two to represent it. The funny thing is of course they're facing each other on the coat of arms holding a shield between them so if they both go forward neither of them are going to move.

Yes. Which really says a lot about Australia. So what do kangaroos eat? Big grass eaters. That's why a lot of the farmers don't like them who have cattle and sheep, because they will come in and they chew it right down to the nub in the ground. And they've got double stomachs like cows. Actually no, they have a different, they have a tube shaped stomach and one of the great things about them

is that they don't produce as much methane as cows. I'd heard that, they don't fart. About 20% less per body volume than methane produced by a cow. So they're quite green, not contributing to greenhouse gases. Not as badly, but unfortunately they damage the ground a lot more that they eat from, which is another reason why mobs move so much. I had a look into this whole thing that when other animals create methane that escapes as gas, not just through farting and burping, but just through breathing. With kangaroos,

that hydrogen is turned through a process of fermentation back into acetate and then that generates more energy. So actually the kangaroos are very, very energy efficient in terms of consumption and expulsion compared to all these farty cows and sheep. They're actually quite efficient. Scientists are apparently interested in looking into the bacteria responsible for that process to see if they can put it into cows so that cows will produce less methane. Oh wow. Change the actual enzymes in the stomach. Yeah. Because they also have that, what do they call it, polyphidontie? Teeth. They keep growing teeth. So they wear their molars down but they actually, new ones grow behind them all the time as opposed to like when we wear ours down that's it. Kangaroos can keep producing the molars and replacing them. They actually,

the molars shift forward in their jaw over time and then new ones grow behind them and then those eventually shift forward and apparently the only other two creatures that do that are elephants and manatees. Thank you. I was trying to think it's an elephant and the other one. I can remember the other one. So kangaroo meat. Let's talk about that for a minute. Kangaroos have always been hunted for their meat, for their skin to be used as leather. Apparently there are some local tribes who centuries ago used to use a stuffed kangaroo scrotum to play a game of football with.

So they've been hunted for quite a small football. Well, maybe they got a really, really well endowed kangaroo. Maybe they played a handball game with it, you know, about the size of a squash ball. Yeah, maybe. Is kangaroo meat still consumed? Even in our supermarkets, you can usually get it. It's become very expensive. It used to be one of those cheap meats

because people were farming it. So many are now culled for dog meat. Yes, you can buy it over here. An average hunter can get a license, and they're allowed to I think the maximum they can do in a night is about a hundred Kangaroos and they have to do a headshot. They're not allowed any other shots on the kangaroo So they must kill it with a headshot, right?

And some of these guys are very good at it, of course, you know, because you'll put a spotlight on the kangaroo go What's it? Hop on. Yeah, but they're only allowed also a particular types like a the kangaroo go, what's that? You hop off. Yeah. But they're only allowed also a particular types like a red kangaroo or the Western grey you're not allowed some of the others and it is monitored and you have to produce the tags. So they're licensed in that way but they do something like I think it's 600,000 a year a cull in Australia doesn't affect the population.

So how many are there then? How many kangaroos? Yeah. Well in the non-cultivated areas there's about 42 million but that's when they only do the surveys in the areas of cultivation as opposed to the whole country. Wow, that's a lot of kangaroos. I mean it's delicious. I've had kangaroo meat it's very nice. I personally used to eat it when I used to eat, you know, more meat. I used to eat kangaroo as a preference. It's a game meat, isn't it Bruce? It's very healthy.

I mean, it's got, it's very low in cholesterol. It's much healthier for you than cow. Right, okay. Definitely. And it's got a lovely strength to it, like you actually chew it. Yeah, the texture is really nice. You can make it into like a dried meat as well, which is very nice. The other thing is when you're talking about kangaroos in Australia is, you know, toponyms.

Toponyms? What's that? That's when a name is associated by description. Oh, I see, yeah. But when you talk about land in Australia, you know, kangaroo something, kangaroo lake, kangaroo valley, kangaroo bay, kangaroo rocks, kangaroo cliffs, kangaroo points, kangaroo mountain, kangaroo island, kangaroo, you know, they're like, what will you name this? I don't know.

Well, is it kangaroo? We'll say it's Kangaroo Island, you know. Yeah, and a friend of mine spends a lot of time on Kangaroo Island. It's a quite nice place. Hi, Peggy. But then we've got kangaroo dogs, kangaroo paws. Do you know what kangaroo paws are? It's when they wait. Nice try. They're a flower and there are several variations of it and the flower part are actually the shape of a kangaroo's paw.

Oh really? You've talked about things being named after kangaroos. I mean that includes tennis players doesn't it? Okay try and make the link. No go on tell us. Who's one of the most famous female tennis players that you know? Australian female tennis player? Gula Gong. Yes so Gula Gong is actually translates as kangaroos nose. Really? Yes. So Gula Gong's last name is kangaroos nose. Brilliant. Never heard that before. That's a good one. There you go. We're all on a constant journey of learning here. Always. You're welcome.

You talked about them being sort of quite strong and sort of muscly. There was one called Roger. Do you know about Roger? Roger the ripped kangaroo. I've heard of this. Who is Roger? So Roger was rescued in Alice Springs and the people who rescued him was Joey. Actually made the Alice Springs kangaroo sanctuary around Roger and then they started to look after other orphaned animals in the sanctuary. But Roger grew into this really muscle-bound, kind of really muscly-looking, ripped, hench kangaroo. And they took some pictures of Roger, and it went viral on the internet. So he's sadly now not with us. But I'll put some pictures of Roger on the on the blog.

And when you look at him, you go, wow, I wish I had a body like that. And there are some of them I mean they used to tour them around the country in the 1920s and 30s with the boxing tents because a lot of the indigenous people used to you know sort of make a bit of a living by traveling with the boxing tents and when you consider they can do, how many pounds do you think they can strike with, how many of force? Oh, more than me. No, actually, they're actually the same as a human. 275 pounds is what they can hit with.

Wow, okay. That's with the paws, with the forearms. That's with the paws, not the feet, yeah. What about kangaroos? They don't walk. They don't walk? No, kangaroos will lift both legs using their tail. That's the other great thing about the tail. So when they run the tails for balance, but when they're

on the ground, they use it like a third leg to sit back, stand up, push, push off with. Yeah. And when they move forward, you sort of think, oh, they don't move like, you know, we'd take half step, half step. Yeah, they don't they literally lift both feet Well, I suppose they're wearing they're wearing giant clown shoes aren't they? They're quite hard to walk properly But they can jump like 25 feet. Yes. Wow. Yeah, I think you actually 16 meters I think is the 16 16 meters I think was the length that was recorded Because I mean, you know in the wild and in captivity did you see the difference there? No. In the wild they live about

eight years. Hmm. In captivity 25. Good grief. I guess that's because they don't have any predators and they have a good diet. Life is good, they get fed, yeah you know no stress. Three times as long that's quite impressive. How long do you reckon we live in the wild? Couple of days. I've been out in some of the wild out here and unfortunately yeah it's very harsh conditions and it requires a certain skill. You have to admire the early nomads of the aboriginal nomadic people. How hard it must have been just to get from place to place. But kangaroos can go without water for a long time. It's a bit like

camels I guess. How can they? They can go without water for months. Actually, see this is the other thing with kangaroos, how they cool themselves. You would have seen that they lick their paws because that's where the blood comes closest to the surface. So they lick them to cool down. Oh, it's evaporation on the paws. Yeah. And we just thought they were doing it to the surface. So they lick them to cool down. It's evaporation on the paws. Yeah Yeah, and we just thought they were doing it to look cute So another famous kangaroo I looked at I was just sort of having a look around at all these different cartoon kangaroos and so on and I came across

Kanga and Rue from the Winnie the Pooh stories. And I hadn't really realised this. Kanga is the only female character in all of Winnie the Pooh. And apparently, as with the other creatures, these were actually a stuffed toy animal that Christopher Robin, the son of A.A. Milne, owned. So A.A. Milne, he sort of started buying more and more cuddly toys to go with the existing bear, donkey, piglet, tiger. And then he bought the kangaroos. And Milne said, I acquired these additional toys, not just for the delight they might give their new owner, but also for their literary possibilities. So when he bought the kangaroos, he was already thinking of, you know, what characters can I put in my book next?

So they were quite deliberate. Wow. And little Rue's such a wonderful character. Just so, so three year old, two year old behaviour. Energetic, no, no concern for the results of his actions. It's very cute. And there are other songs about kangaroos of course unfortunately. There's one we won't mention.

There's one we won't mention, there's one that you've already mentioned. Right. But then you start to look at the idea that a kangaroo jumps and it's got a pouch so they use it a lot with children's songs. And I mean they are pretty mind-numbing, you know, for any parent who knows they're going to have to listen to the song three or four hundred times over a few days, you have things like the Pounce Patrol doing do, do, do the kangaroo. Great.

Angela twigs the kangaroo song, the Lulu Kids jump like a kangaroo, the kangaroo hop. Yes. But then you get a serious band who does something like The Beggars, the band The Beggars who do kangaroo as a genuine sort of Aussie sounding rock song. Right. Actually there is a version of the song that I wasn't going to mention by Pat Boone. Okay. So let's talk about Pat Boone's version of Time Me Kangaroo Down Sport. Okay, go on then. So can you actually tie a kangaroo down? Good luck catching it. Medically, vets have treated kangaroos and they usually sort of get to a point where

they have to tranquilize them to be able to get in to treat them. Even the kangaroos that are zoos and things like that. If the kangaroo does not want to be held, he does not want to be held. I mean, I don't know if you've ever, I've sort of helped hold down wild deer and they're about 200 kilos. But when you think that some of these kangaroos can hit 300 kilos in weight. Wow. And if you grab one and you think you're going to hold that, well, good luck. So the request on behalf of the singer for sport to tie down his aforementioned kangaroo is quite hopeful yes does mention wallabies as well doesn't it the song the wallabies a little you can pick

up a wallaby yeah watch me wallabies it's keep me cockatoo cool mind me platypus duck take me koala back Jack yeah he talks about platypuses and didgeridoo's and all sorts of things in this song so let's move swiftly on to the fact that kangaroos are left-handed are they yes they're not yeah and that was the thing I found most surprising they are left-handed apparently the majority of kangaroos are left-handed. Will Barron See our episode on elephants. Jason Vale Oh yeah. Will Barron Because elephants are also handed.

Jason Vale Yeah, or left-trunked. Will Barron So a kangaroo favours the left. Jason Vale It's one of those, you sort of look at it, what difference does it make whether a kangaroo is left or right? But you think of kangaroos, and you think of them standing there and they stand up. And because're left or right-handed which way they're going to turn first okay yeah left to the left and if you see a mob stand up and move all in one they don't often cross paths they literally go as a bit like the Starlings you know you watch the Starling Mermatians yeah and you think how do

they not crash into each other they seem to be changing direction so fast in kangaroos when they're jumping and you see them change direction as a group occasionally they scatter. That's usually because something else has disturbed them. But when they go as a group you just wonder how do they all know when to turn at the same time? I think they they tend to sort of lead with their left paw when they're grooming and washing themselves as well don't they? So whilst there are terrible diseases in the world, who's done the research to discover that kangaroos are left-handed?

Someone with lots of time and a very large budget. Well, someone did the study to find out which way cockroaches turn when they come to a wall. Sorry? And guess which way they turn? Do they go left? Yes. Israeli University did a study and they identified that a cockroach, when it comes to a wall, will tend to turn to the left.

So if you're going to squish a cockroach, favour the left side. So at this point in the show, Simon often comes up with some Guinness records about things. He does. Yes, I've got a few. They're sort of quite predictable. Longest, biggest, furthest, etc. The longest kangaroo jump that's been measured was in New South Wales in 1951. A female kangaroo made a series of jumps and someone was sort of driving alongside measuring them. And one of her jumps, the longest one, measured 12.8 meters or 42 feet. What?! Was that going downhill with the following wind? It didn't stay.

That's an average for a Grand Kangaroo. 42 feet! Yeah, that's quite a jump. We've got one for the highest jump. there was a captive Eastern Grey Kangaroo once jumped over an eight-foot fence after being startled by a car back firing. That's why our exclusion fences are very high. Yes, yes. Because they will literally they'll clear a basic fence and they can some of them can even get up to the top of an exclusion fence. That's crazy. Goodness me. Yeah. My last record isn't really anything to do with the kangaroo but it's kind of to do with the kangaroo. The world's biggest coin has a kangaroo on it. This is the Australian kangaroo coin. It weighs one ton, it's made of gold bullion

and it has a face value of one million Australian dollars. Is this one of those things that banks pass from bank to bank just like a showpiece? It's a showpiece I think at the Australian Mint. It's the copy of the actual coin which is a lot smaller that we carry in our pocket as a souvenir to remind us of what we could aspire to. Oh is that right? I believe it's got a kangaroo on one side and is it the queen on the other side? I can't remember. Originally, yes. I don't think they've minted new ones yet with the king. Okay. But yeah, it's not practical. It's not the sort of thing you take into the local

news agents and buy a chocolate bar and a newspaper and get some change, is it? No, true. So yeah, there you go. Those are my kangaroo related records. Thanks very much, Simon. And thank you very much, true. So yeah, there you go. Those are my kangaroo related records. Thanks very much, Simon. And thank you very much, Greg. Yes, thank you for coming along, Greg. Have you enjoyed yourself? I have.

It's been lovely. And as I said, you can edit out anything I've said incorrectly. So that's good. Perfect. Well, thank you everyone for coming to join us today. If you've enjoyed this episode, please give us a like. Or you can give us a five-star review and tell us why you like kangaroos. That'd be even better. And then hit the subscribe button so the next time an episode pops up you can get a lovely notification to say that it's there. Or tell your friends in Australia.

What's that Skip? You've been listening to a new podcast called Factorally. What's that skip? You've been listening to a new podcast called Factorally. So there we go, thank you for coming along. Please join us next time for another fun-filled factual episode of... Factorally! Goodbye. What's Australian for goodbye? See ya!