# Wallabies



## MarkF (Jul 5, 2003)

I have been doing a lot of cycling lately along the Leeds - Liverpool canal, from Shipley westwards. I've seen plenty of snakes and deer, usually daily, no surprise there but today I saw, and I am not kidding you, in a field, minding their own business............... some wallabies.


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## JoT (Aug 12, 2003)

I always suspected Bradford was a bit weird


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## MarkF (Jul 5, 2003)

JoT said:


> I always suspected Bradford was a bit weird


They were over west bewteen Skipton and Silsden I don't think any wallabies could get within 10 miles of Bradford without becoming halal wallabies.


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## pugster (Nov 22, 2004)

i told you not to eat those mushrooms growing on your lawn







,joking aside i hear they are supposed to taste pretty good (the wallabies )







.


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## Alas (Jun 18, 2006)

Not just small kangaroos??


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## JoT (Aug 12, 2003)

MarkF said:


> They were over west bewteen Skipton and Silsden I don't think any wallabies could get within 10 miles of Bradford without becoming halal wallabies.


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## JonW (Mar 23, 2005)

lol. i expect they were aussie backpackers who had gone feral from being away from Bayswater or Earls Court for too long...


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## MarkF (Jul 5, 2003)

Alas said:


> Not just small kangaroos??


I am prepared, if you insist on being pedantic, to accept that the wallabies might well have been "small kangaroos"


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## Alas (Jun 18, 2006)

MarkF said:


> Alas said:
> 
> 
> > Not just small kangaroos??
> ...


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## deryckb (Aug 11, 2005)

MarkF said:


> Alas said:
> 
> 
> > Not just small kangaroos??
> ...


There have been reports of "small kangaroos" in other parts of the country.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A786477


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## pauluspaolo (Feb 24, 2003)

I'm pretty sure I've heard of wallabies in Yorkshire before. Seems like you've just confirmed it Mark


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## JonW (Mar 23, 2005)

Be a bit careful with these creatures... We have lots of them here, obviously. They are a bit like Deer... ie. they like to drink / eat in lush areas and tend to congrgate by the roads and they then seem to be fascinated by the headlights of cars at night and wander into the road to check them out. Ok so hitting small wallabies dents your car but hitting a big red can be as bad as hitting a deer - same colour and size....







if golbal warming takes hold will the UK end up with Wombats and Koalas as well I wonder...

The large and bewildered animal collection we have here means we dont drive in the countryside at night much unless you have a roo bar....


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## JonW (Mar 23, 2005)

Talk about timing....

12/7/2006 7:13:09 AM

( Source: Reuters)

Killer kangaroo, demon duck of doom roamed Outback

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Forget cute, cuddly marsupials. A team of Australian palaeontologists say they have found the fossilised remains of a fanged killer kangaroo and what they describe as a "demon duck of doom".

A University of New South Wales team said the fearsome fossils were among 20 previously unknown species uncovered at a site in northwest Queensland state.

Professor Michael Archer said on Wednesday the remains of a meat-eating kangaroo with wolf-like fangs were found as well as a galloping kangaroo with long forearms that could not hop like a modern kangaroo.

"Because they didn't hop, these were galloping kangaroos, with big, powerful forelimbs. Some of them had long canines (fangs) like wolves," Archer told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.

Vertebrate palaeontologist Sue Hand said modern kangaroos look almost nothing like their ferocious forebears, which lived between 10 million and 20 million years ago.

The species found at the dig had "well muscled-in teeth, not for grazing. These things had slicing crests that could have crunched through bone and sliced off flesh", Hand said.

The team also found prehistoric lungfish and large duck-like birds.

"Very big birds ... more like ducks, earned the name 'demon duck of doom', some at least may have been carnivorous as well," Hand told ABC radio.

Archer said the team was studying the fossils to better understand how they were affected by changing climates in the Miocene epoch between 5 million and 24 million years ago.


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