Why do kangaroos carry their babies in a pouch?

Joeys (the name for a baby kangaroo) are born at a very young age and are about the size of jelly bean.  At birth, they crawl up the mother’s body and enter a pouch where they attach to a teat to feed.  As it grows, the joey begins to spend more time outside of the pouch and fully leaves the pouch of its mother at about 7 to 10 months of age.

Kangaroos are marsupials – meaning that they give birth to very young babies that cannot survive outside their mothers.  Koalas and opossums are also marsupials and have pouches. There are 47 different types of kangaroos including Wallabies (the smallest) and the Red Kangaroo (the largest).  Kangaroos are herbivores.  They eat grasses and young shoots of plants. Kangaroos need very little water to survive and can go for months without drinking any at all.

Here is a cute video of a baby jumping out of her mother’s pouch. 

This video is from National Geographic – it is a fairly graphic video of the birth of a joey and his journey to his mother’s  pouch.