{"id":519383,"date":"2026-04-08T10:59:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T10:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/519383\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T10:59:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T10:59:13","slug":"whats-the-fastest-land-mammal-in-australia-it-can-outpace-a-human-thanks-to-giant-springs-in-its-legs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/519383\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s the fastest land mammal in Australia? It can outpace a human thanks to giant \u2018springs\u2019 in its legs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia has a reputation for being full of deadly \u2013 and often wonderfully weird \u2013 wildlife.<\/p>\n

But many of its endemic animals, such as the wombat<\/a>, koala<\/a> and platypus<\/a>, aren\u2019t known for their fast pace \u2013 apart from one.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the fastest land mammal in Australia?<\/p>\n

The fastest terrestrial mammal in Australia is the red kangaroo<\/a> which can clock up a top speed of around 56 kmph (34 mph) over shorter distances.<\/p>\n

And its ability to hop is an incredibly efficient way of travelling. Rather than straining and contracting their muscles to hop, kangaroos have large Achilles tendons which act like huge springs.<\/p>\n

Their hopping motion also drives their gut up and down, inflating and deflating their lungs \u2013 which saves them effort while breathing.<\/p>\n

It’s thought that the kangaroo’s ancestors used its tail to grab hold of trees. Credit: BBC Natural History\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Their tail (which has been described by researchers as a \u201cfifth leg\u201d<\/a>) also supports, propels and powers their gait. <\/p>\n

But kangaroos actually spend most of their time at a more leisurely pace while grazing \u2013 choosing to hop when they need to cover vast distances. <\/p>\n

Top image: a red kangaroo in Sturt National Park, New South Wales, eastern Australia. Credit: imageBROKER\/Jurgen & Christine Sohns\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia has a reputation for being full of deadly \u2013 and often wonderfully weird \u2013 wildlife. But many…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-519383","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}