BABY WALLABY AT NEWTOWN ZOO

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23177, 14 November 1940, Page 9

BABY WALLABY AT NEWTOWN ZOO

CURIOUS METHOD OF UPBRINGING An interesting arrival at Newtown Park Zoo, Wellington, is a baby wallaby, which in the last two days has looked out at the world for the first time from its mother’s pouch. This does not mean, however, that it is only two days old, as young marsupials spend their infancy in the seclusion of the parent’s pouch, and only thrust their heads out when they are approaching the weaning stage. When a baby wallaby or kangaroo is born, it is only about the size of a bumble bee. It immediately scrambles into the mother's pouch, directed by instinct. It weans itself by snatching blades of grass as 'the mother browses, and later emerges from the pouch for short intervals before finally 1 assuming complete independence. At the stage now reached by the young wallaby at the Wellington Zoo, wallabies always prove popular exhibits with visitors, interested by this

unusual mode of infantile development, and by the extremely handy facilities possessed by a mother kangaroo for carrying her baby about with The newly-born tiger cuds at the zoo are stated to be doing well.