How to Get Into a Kangaroo’s Pouch

Wildlife photographer Jason Edwards seized an opportunity few ever get -to take pictures of a newborn kangaroo inside its mother’s pouch. Two years ago, Edwards encountered a wild kangaroo that was unusually friendly. The scientist who was with Edwards then recognized the animal as the orphan ‘roo she had hand-raised six years earlier! The kangaroo recognized the scientist, too.

After a few days of returning to the semi-desert national park in far northern New South Wales and talking to and sitting with the kangaroo, the researcher was able to get close enough to her former orphan to open her pouch.

In a matter of seconds, Mr Edwards managed to slip in a macro lens and capture this rare glimpse of life inside the marsupial’s pouch. The photo – of a newborn joey, known as a pinkie, suckling the mother’s teat – is being exhibited as part of the New Scientist Eureka Prize for Science Photography Exhibition in Sydney.

“It was one of those frames you don’t get very often,” Mr Edwards told The Times.

The mother kangaroo was calm and not at all bothered by the photo shoot. Link -via Arbroath