Relationships between Mother and Infant Red‐necked Wallabies (Macropus rufogriseus banksianus)

Abstract

AbstractYoung red‐necked wallabies first look out of the pouch at 6 months of age, and may begin to leave it for short periods a month later. Their mothers do not exclude them from the pouch until they are 9 or 10 months old, and in the intervening time they may spend quite long periods abroad, but return to the pouch when alarmed.During their first month after permanently emerging from the pouch, infant wallabies spend much of their time alone in dense vegetation, while their mothers feed and rest elsewhere. Over the subsequent four months to weaning the young spend most, but not all of their time with their mothers; infants use small home ranges and rarely accompany their mothers into open areas. Sons follow their mothers more closely, and spend more time with them, than daughters do. While together, mothers and offspring interact with a low frequency; suckling bouts are rare but quite long. Mothers and young usually flee in different directions if alarmed, and find one another again later.Other species of macropods as small as, or smaller than red‐necked wallabies also display behaviour comparable to the hiding of the newborn young of many species of ungulates, while the larger kangaroos of more open habitats have following young. This trend in the occurrence of hiding and following parallels the distribution of the same traits in ungulates, except that hiding is less strongly and less widely expressed in the macropods. This difference between the two groups is probably due to the marsupial mode of reproduction: young macropods of a developmental stage comparable to newborn ungulates can evade predation by entering the pouch, while the infant ungulates must either hide alone or follow their mothers.