Are There Animals That Look Like A Kangaroo In Teh United States

With interests in science and nature, the author explores topics from a unique and sometimes controversial perspective.

Is there a rare species of kangaroo living in the night corners of North America?

Past Pearson Scott Foresman [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Are There Whatever Wild Kangaroos in the U.s.?

Phantom species are creatures reported to exist far out of their habitation ranges. Everybody knows kangaroos, those hippity-hopping things that acquit their kids around in their pockets. They're supposed to live in Australia, so why accept people spotted them in Northward America?

They've been dubbed Phantom or Errant Kangaroos, and these elusive marsupials accept been documented effectually the United States for over a hundred years. What'southward going on with these out-of-place animals, and tin can the sightings really be believed?

With sprawling fields and farms it appears that rural America would be a neat habitat for the kangaroo, especially the southwestern states that may more closely mimic their outback habitat in the wild.

Big, non-indigenous animals take certainly gained a foothold in Australia, from camels to pigs and even possibly big cats. Is it possible the Land Down Under may be exporting some critters of their own?

Just some believe these cryptid kangaroos aren't Aussies at all, but instead a rare species still to be classified by scientific discipline.

It seems similar a stretch, only it's not as bonkers as it might sound. Kangaroos and other marsupials all evolved from a common ancestor. And, in fact, there are however marsupials in the Americas today.

Is information technology and so unreasonable to remember a species of kangaroo may accept evolved in the Americas? And could these creatures maintain a small, obscure population out of sight of humans?

Wherever they came from, people have claimed sightings of cryptid kangaroos in America for decades.

Errant Kangaroo Sightings Explained

Errant kangaroos have been spotted in America dating dorsum to 1899, from Minnesota to California to New Jersey to North Carolina. In that location are a few grainy pictures floating around, and even some police reports, merely no animal living or dead has always been recovered.

Of class, the near popular explanation for sightings of wild kangaroos in North America is mistaken identity. Deer run rampant in many areas of the country, and they are of similar size. Deer exercise bear a vague resemblance to kangaroos from the neck up.

Deer are also capable of rearing up on their back legs for very short periods of time, though to encounter one exercise so is rare. Whitetail jump and bound quite capably, but of course, they don't hop on their hind legs, and one would think it would be piece of cake to spot the divergence.

Otherwise, there are few American animals we can logically confuse with a kangaroo. Equally large marsupials, they are unique to the world and have no equivalent in N America. So, is information technology possible that Australian kangaroos accept somehow managed to gain a foothold in America?

A kangaroo grazing in a field shares a vague resemblance with a deer.

By Mammalwatcher (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

Fugitives from Zoos?

Australian kangaroos that take escaped from zoos or individual properties are some other possible cause of the sightings. At that place are several animal sanctuaries around the United states of america housing kangaroos, numerous zoos, and an unknown number of unlicensed owners.

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If these animals had escaped from private citizens who had owned them illegally it'due south not likely they would be reported. Is information technology possible some of these animals have established a breeding population over the years?

One more interesting explanation for Phantom Kangaroos is that they represent a species of rare marsupial not yet classified past science. The North American Kangaroo, while biologically plausible, is a stretch. Information technology'southward tough to imagine an animal that thrives in fields elsewhere in the world would become undetected for then long in America.

It is even harder to imagine one never getting shot past a hunter.

Are rare American Kangaroos simply escaped zoo animals?

By Sklmsta (Own piece of work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Eatables

Could Kangaroos Survive in America?

In that location are marsupials in the Americas, about notably S America. North America has the Opossum, simply southward of the Isthmus of Panama, there are nearly a hundred species of marsupial, including sixty species of Opossum.

In fact, Australian marsupials originated in South America, many millions of years ago when Australia, South America, and Antarctica were connected.

These days, there are tremendous differences between American and Australian marsupials. That is, except for an animal called the Monito del Monte.

Strangely, this tiny critter shares more than genetic similarities with Australian marsupials than its American cousins. It is apparently the only extant member of the family of marsupials that went on to colonize Australia.

What does this mean for the American Kangaroo? Evidently this tiny animal wouldn't exist mistaken for a kangaroo, fifty-fifty if it did somehow make its way to North America.

Information technology ways the possibility exists for convergent evolution. This is when distant ancestors evolve similar traits despite their complete separation. So, if Nature decided this model worked in Australia, might Nature make up one's mind the same blazon of creature would evolve in America?

Does this explain how at that place could be an extremely rare species of kangaroo in America?

The Paranormal Side of Phantom Kangaroos

Unfortunately, at that place is another side to phantom kangaroo sightings that causes the whole idea to have an even more ridiculous plough. Ghostly kangaroos, creatures that assail people and feed on livestock, and beasts that appear to be crossbred creatures are reported alongside the reports of "normal" kangaroos.

As though it'south non interesting enough for a population of wild kangaroos to live in North America, they sometimes get mixed upwardly with less-realistic cryptids such as the Chupacabra or the Jersey Devil.

For serious cryptozoologists, information technology's important to separate the ii types of sightings. And maybe this strangeness can explain the lack of interest in the N American Kangaroo past the general public: It's just too darn weird.

The cryptid kangaroo deserves more than a passing glance when it comes to research and public interest. Unfortunately, there are far more interesting legendary creatures loose in the Americas that command attention. But it'due south easy to imagine that the first capture of a North American Kangaroo could stun the world, and plough science on its ear.

The American Kangaroo

Could at that place be a population of errant kangaroos living in N America?

Or, there could be a much more mundane explanation. We come across cases where errant big cat populations appear to have gained footholds in places similar the United Kingdom and Australia. Generally, these animals are causeless to take escaped from private owners, perhaps over decades, and at present have established a convenance population in the wild.

Whether they are escaped pets or an undiscovered species, information technology's fascinating to recollect that kangaroos might exist and then far abroad from home.

Phantom Kangaroos: Seriously?

This content is authentic and true to the best of the author's noesis and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized communication from a qualified professional person.

Derek Lotek on May 04, 2019:

I saw what looked very much like a kangaroo while driving west in July 2005 on Interstate 40, nigh the border of Arizona and California. It was hunched over in thehe eye of the pike, late afternoon. From a distance, information technology sorta looked similar a large dog or something, but every bit I got closer, it leaned back looked my style and sorta lumbered off the road and disappeared into the brush before I really got to where information technology was munching on something in the road.

At the time, I was driving across country, and was talking to my mother on the phone. She idea I was crazy and had been driving besides long. But, I know what I saw. I saw something that looked and moved like a kangaroo. It didn't hop, instead information technology walked on all fours. The only thing other than a kangaroo/wallaby that I tin think of is that information technology was a very deformed coyote.

I always figured it was an escaped pet. People in the desert practise crazy things sometimes, similar keep strange pets. So why not? Anyhow, I was simply retelling this story today and figured I would look online for other people who take seen them. Instead I found that they are in the Big Pes domain ... :/

Melba Corbett on January 20, 2019:

When I was a kid, my Mother told u.s.a. about the brute that hopped similar a kangaroo and jumped over high fences and killed livestock when they were farming in SW Georgia, U.S. This was during the early 1900s.

Brad Stewart on July 15, 2017:

I live in New Brunswick, Canada and when i was 17, i was driving habitation with a friend and something alee of us was continuing on the road. Nosotros were about 200 meters away when we first saw it, and got very close to it earlier it hoped off the road and into the woods and to this day i know it looked like a kangaroo. we puled upwards to where it went into the woods but in that location was know sign, not even a foot impress in the dirt. My friend told everyone and they all laughed and thought he was crazy, anyone who asked me if my friend was making information technology all up, I would tell them "I don't know what I say, but it had every advent of a kangaroo everything." I seen the creature about 6 or seven km from Grand Lake.

Equally a child me and my friends always played in the woods, and for 16 years of working in the woods, I have never seen anything similar the creature i seen that day, But i know what I seen and my friend seen it too.

I have read some most these sightings merely they are never this far north and that is what i don't understand, this is to cold of a climate i would remember.

I don't know why I idea this just know, simply i wonder if bigfoot prints people see in the woods are actually kangaroo prints, lol merely a weird thought.

of all the posts i read over the years, this is my showtime post ever lol

Jeff Snodgres on June 08, 2017:

I am aware of two instances where farmed kangaroos in the United states have escaped and maintained a foothold in the U.S. for several years... Also, Upward to 150 wallabies are living wild in the forest of Rambouillet, nearly Paris, the descendants of a handful who escaped from a nearby zoo in the 1970s.

There are several 'displaced' populations of wallabies and kangaroos beyond the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland, along with a couple in the U.S.

Hubdjf on December fifteen, 2014:

I would love to see kangaroos in america! I imagine it would exist easy for them to survive in the due south! At that place are wallaby populations found within the Great britain, and kangaroos and wallabies are very similar creatures.

cryptid (author) from United states on May 26, 2012:

Thanks kitty. I never heard of them either until I was doing research on something else a while back. I just had to learn more about these phantom Kangaroos!

Kitty Fields from Summerland on May 26, 2012:

I'd never heard of phantom 'roos in the U.s.a....very interesting. I'one thousand sure it'due south not out of the realm of possibility. Thank you for sharing with us.

greekwarrior from Sylvania, Ohio, USA on May 24, 2012:

very interesting hub, rated interesting and up.

cryptid (author) from U.s.a. on May 17, 2012:

Thanks Georgie. I've never seen one either, but there are probably all kinds of goofy things in this world that I accept never seen!

Georgie Lowery from North Florida on May 16, 2012:

Interesting. I've never seen a kangaroo hopping around in the woods, but I gauge that doesn't hateful that they aren't there!

Very interesting Hub. Voted upwards!

Source: https://exemplore.com/cryptids/Phantom-Kangaroos-in-North-America

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