Review: The Tree Kangaroo
Category: Animals
Author: Anonymous, variously attributed to Evolution/God
Rating: 13%
The Tree Kangaroos are a family of tree-dwelling mammalian macropods native to Australasia. The group is a small one, consisting of approximately 12 species. As the name suggests, they are descended from the orthodox macropods- kangaroos and wallabies- although they have a number of adaptations which help them exist in an arboreal habitat, such as strong forearms and long tails. They range in length between 81 and 164cm, and weigh in at up to 14.5Kg. They are primarily herbivorous, although they will take eggs to supplement their diet of leaves. They can take a 60 foot drop without injury.
It’s hard to imagine an animal more crappy than the tree kangaroo, a creature that is actually as stupid as it sounds. A flawed concept from the beginning, the tree kangaroo has failed to improve its situation- it’s not well adapted to living in trees. In fact, it’s just like a regular kangaroo, but stuck in a tree: I resent the lack of thought here. Clearly whoever came up with this animal just wanted to ride on the back of the regular kangaroo's success.
I don’t know whether it’s God or evolution who should take the blame for this monstrosity- and since they can’t agree whose idea it was, I’m going to assume they both are. Evolution has thrown up some impressive specimens in the past, but clearly it just hasn’t made the effort here- the tree kangaroo has no natural competitors, so evolution has abandoned it. If God is responsible, then this is one of his worst ideas to date- and the fact that he had access to infinite knowledge and infinite power in order to create this creature boggles the mind. Someone is at fault here: nothing has gone right for the tree kangaroo.
The tree kangaroo explores its habitat by holding onto one branch with its forearms, and hopping along the branch it’s standing on sideways. This is a stupid idea. You might also expect that, once on the ground, the tree kangaroo would make up for its clumsiness in the trees by working even better on terra firma. Wrong. On the ground, the tree kangaroo is even worse: their tails are too heavy, so they have to lean forward and hop awkwardly along. At least the sloth, which also sucks at geolateral perambulation, is a good swimmer and economical in the branches. The tree kangaroo can’t do anything.
The tree kangaroo is currently being hunted to extinction because hunting them is, as one might imagine, ridiculously easy. They don’t taste particularly good, but trust me when I say that the hunters are doing us all, and the kangaroos, a favour. The tree kangaroo is the Jar-jar of the animal world; please join me in hoping they all get replaced by lemurs.
