The biggest threat the the red kangaroo faces is protecting it's young from the ever hunting dingo.The tail of a Parma wallaby is usually the same length as it's entire body (Read & Barry, 1991). |
Male and female parma wallabies (Macropus parma) look relatively similar to each other, both having short brownish fur on its back and white to grey fur covering its chest and underbelly (Taylor A.C. et al., 1999). The red kangaroo (Macropus rufus) shows more sexual dimorphism in their appearance than the parma wallaby. Male red kangaroos are a reddish-brown while the females are more bluish-grey, but both male and female red kangaroos have a grey to white underbelly, throat and chest (Russell E.M., 1974).
The parma wallaby (Macropus parma) is a solitary animal that eats alone most of the time or in groups ranging from 1-3 and has little social interaction with other wallabies (Maynes G.M., 1977) (Ord T.J et al., 1999) whereas the red kangaroo is usually found in larger groups. Parma wallabies are the least sexually dimorphic species in the Macropus genus (Ord T.J. et at., 1999) and significant differences between males and females is only visible after sexual maturity is reached (Maynes G.M., 1976). Male M. parma's are on average 7-9% larger than females in body measurements, weigh on average 9% more than females, and the most significant is that males have on average 18.5% larger forearms than females, which is thought to be required during mating (Maynes G.M., 1976). Although males dominate over females in size, females reach sexual maturity earlier than males, at about 16 months compared to 22 months in males (Maynes G.M., 1973). Red kangaroos on the other hand are quite sexually dimorphic in both their size and coloration (Russell E.M., 1974). Whereas parma wallabies have periods of rapid growth followed by little to no growth, red kangaroo males typically grow constantly throughout their life to reach their max weight at around 15 years (Munn A.J. & Dawson T.J., 2003). Red kangaroo females reach sexual maturity around 15-20 months (similar to female parma wallabies) and males reach sexual maturity at approximately 2 years in captivity or significantly later in the wild (also similar to male parma wallabies) (Maynes G.M., 1973). The red kangaroo, the worlds largest living marsupial, can live up to 27 years or more (Nowak R.M., 1991) while the parma wallaby typically lives to about 6-8 years in the wild (Maynes G.M., 1977). Several marsupials, including the parma wallaby and the red kangaroo, breed continuously throughout the year with slight variations or restrictions that are not fully understood but could include drought and availability of food (Russell E.M., 1974). Although parma wallabies are said to mate throughout the year, more recent data suggest that most young are born between February and June (Maynes G.M., 1977). Both the parma wallaby and the red kangaroo have one offspring at a time. Both the parma wallaby (M. parma) and the red kangaroo (M. rufus) are native to Australia. The parma wallaby is restricted to the eastern coast in New South Wales with its optimal habitat being wet sclerophyll forest with thick understory , whereas the red kangaroo is typically found more inland on drier open plains (i.e. deserts, grasslands, shrub-land and open woodland) and away from the coastal regions of Australia (Russell E.M., 1974). The parma wallaby has also been introduced into Kawau I., New Zealand where it seem to be thriving. M. parma is most active at night, therefore they are nocturnal animals, although there have been sightings of parma wallaby early in the morning and late at night, but on these occasions the weather was recored to be rainy and overcast (Russell E.M., 1974). |