You almost look like a Kangaroo!

Maybe the most famous living creature in Australia is the Kangaroo. Everybody gets really excited when they see a Kangaroo for the first time. So did we, when we had the chance for the first time. It is amazing to see a group of Kangaroos hopping around in the wild. When you are careful, you can approach them up to a few meters when they are eating in the grass. They will stop eating, and stare at you with a rather silly look. But probably not as silly as the way you are staring at themJ

Kangaroos are very cute animals, especially if you see a small kangaroo, a joey in the pouch of its mother.  They don’t look like any other European or American animal, but they are not as different as you think they are. Actually kangaroos have almost the same genome as you have!

This discovery was presented last week by Australian scientists of the Centre of Excellence for Kangaroo Genomics. There are about 20,000 genes in the kangaroo’s genome, which is about the same size as the human genome. In fact there are great chunks of the human genome sitting right there in the kangaroo genome. The discovery is an important model for understanding human development and will help understand how our genes work. Furthermore it will have significant implications for cancer research. For all the details of the research you can have a look at the KanGO website.

About 150 million years ago, kangaroos and humans were family of each other. The marsupials first evolved in China, but migrated through the American continents first to Antarctica and later to Australia.

So if you meet a Kangaroo again, don’t look at it as a silly animal, you are just one of them!