Animals
Another snow-white kangaroo offspring in Marlow
Baby kangaroo Abigail, an albino, in its mother’s pouch at Marlow Bird Park. photo
© Bernd Wüstneck/dpa
It’s not just feathered animals that live in the Marlow Bird Park. Kangaroos also have their home there. Four of the animals have now had offspring. And one kangaroo girl in particular stands out.
There will soon be another small, snow-white one in the Marlow Bird Park Kangaroo hopping through the enclosure. There is also an albino among the four newborn animals in the accessible Bennett’s kangaroo enclosure. “Abigail is now so big that she will be leaving the bag for her first jumping attempts in the next few weeks,” said the Marlow Bird Park near Rostock on Monday.
Twelve kangaroos live in the bird park. Four of them have now had offspring. The four newborn animals are already regularly peeking out of their parents’ pouch. While three of them have gray-brown fur, baby kangaroo Abigail is snow-white, has a pink nose and red eyes.
“She is a mutation and is a typical albino – a rarity, as albinos occur in one in 10,000 births in nature,” it continued. Your body lacks a special pigment called melanin. It is important for the color of the eyes, skin or fur. If you don’t have melanin in your body, your skin and hair will be white. The eyes look like they are red.
Interestingly, despite this rarity, Abigail is not the first albino child among the kangaroos in Marlow: the last albino kangaroo in the bird park was born in 2011. Alberta was considered a minor sensation. She even had offspring herself, but died about two years ago, a bird park spokeswoman said. If you want to observe the large and small kangaroos up close, you can do so at the daily feeding show from 2.15 p.m.