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Unique Animals Continued

The

Bennett’s HAMILL FAMILY Incredible

WILD ENCOUNTERS
Climbing
Wallaby Jellybean

Macropus rufogriseus

Sex: Two males, one female
Arrival: Born at Brookfield Zoo in October and November of 2020
Native habitat: Southeastern Australia, including Tasmania and the Bass Strait islands; coastal areas,
grasslands, and woodlands
Facts: Brookfield Zoo’s wallaby mob—the term for a group of wallabies—added three new joeys from
three different moms in late 2020. The Bennett’s wallabies at Brookfield Zoo are about half the size of our
Western gray kangaroos. They are known as red-necked wallabies because of the red-tinted fur on their neck
and shoulders. They can jump between 4 and 6 feet high and use their muscular tail for balance. Like other
female marsupials, female wallabies have an abdominal pouch. After a gestation period of about only 30 days,
a blind, hairless, jellybean-sized wallaby joey emerges from its mother’s birth canal. In an extraordinary feat
of strength and endurance, it pulls itself up—fistful of fur by fistful of fur—and into her pouch. The joey
remains there, nourished by its mother’s rich milk, for about nine months and morphs from a jellybean
into a small wallaby.

28 GATEWAYS | UNIQUE ANIMALS