Meet Ipswich’s newest joey. And as we found out just this week – it’s a boy.
Susan, the swamp wallaby gave birth to a joey in February this year at the Ipswich Nature Centre in Queen’s Park.
It was born blind and furless, about the size of a jellybean.
When wallabies are born they immediately crawl into their mothers’ pouches where they continue to develop after birth.
In the last few weeks, the joey started to leave its mothers pouch.
Senior zoologist Nicole Richards has been waiting patiently for the joey to step out.
“It’s taken eight months, but he is now weened and hopping around on his own. He still likes to stay very close to his mum,” she said.
“We caught him up this week and can announce – it’s a boy!”
The joey has not been named yet, but his father’s name is Batman, so staff are thinking of something along the same theme.
The Ipswich Nature Centre now has six Swamp Wallabies. Three female and three male.
You can see the new joey at the Ipswich Nature Centre Tuesday to Sunday. They are open from 9.30am until 4pm.
Interesting Facts
- All wallabies are marsupials or pouched mammals.
- They belong to the family Macropodidae, which are native to the Australian continent.
- There are 30 different types of wallabies
- The name ‘wallaby’ comes from the Eora Aboriginal tribe, who were the original inhabitants of the Sydney area.
- They can swim.
- They can not hop backwards.
- Mother wallabies can produce two types of milk. They can produce one type of milk for a larger joey through one nipple and another for a developing joey still in the pouch through a different nipple. They can even have a fertilized egg in the uterus at the same time.
- Wallabies have a number of predators. These include: European foxes, Tasmanian devils, dingoes, wedge-tailed eagles, cats, dogs and last, but not least, humans.
- Fossils of macropods date back some 4 million years, so their track record of survival, despite the odds, is brilliant.
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