TRENDING

In the News

Too cute: This orphaned tree kangaroo found an unexpected new mom

 

Makaia the tree kangaroo was orphaned when he was only 5 weeks old. So his caretakers at the Adelaide Zoo in Australia came up with an unusual solution: to see if one of their female wallabies could serve as a foster mom.

Tree kangaroos and wallabies are marsupials, which means that they are born very tiny and are carried in a cozy pouch of skin on their mothers’ abdomen until they are ready to explore the world on their own. Makaia was too small to be nursed by zookeepers, so finding a pouch for him was the only solution.

It’s amazing that Makaia was able to survive and be accepted by his wallaby mom. A cross-species foster between wallabies and tree kangaroos has never been recorded, and the species are very different. Tree kangaroos don’t look like your typical Kangaroo—they look more like a fuzzy koala with a long tail, and they are only distant relatives of wallabies.

This good mama took care of little Makaia for three and a half months, and now that he’s big enough, a zookeeper has taken over his care. Success!

What do you think about this ahh-dorable story? 

Photo credit: discovery.com

POSTED IN ,

by Katy Herman | 2/1/2016
share