A fitness instructor was attacked by a kangaroo and pretended to be dead to escape the catastrophe. Is it really useful to play dead when encountering a kangaroo?

In 2017, around 6am on a Saturday morning, Debbie, a female fitness trainer in Australia, was jogging in the park as usual.

When she ran near a bush, a kangaroo appeared, charged at her for no apparent reason, and knocked it over.

Out of an instinctive reaction, Debbie immediately turned sideways, buried her head in her abdomen, and tried to shrink her body into a ball.

However, the kangaroo still grabbed her hands and neck with her forelegs and kept jumping and kicking with her hind legs.

Debbie recalled: "The attack lasted for more than a minute, I thought I was strong as a coach, but in fact it was no match for the kangaroo at all, it tore my clothes and treated me like a rag doll. Tossing and throwing, I was so scared and screamed all the time, but the more screaming, the more aggressive the kangaroo, to protect myself, I endured the pain and stopped making a sound, like dead, motionless, kangaroo Just stop the attack."

After the kangaroo left, Debbie dared to get up from the ground and limped out of here. In the hospital, Debbie suffered multiple wounds all over her body and ended up with 35 stitches.

Debbie was also very fortunate, and made a wise choice at that time - play dead, otherwise it is very likely that she would have been kicked to death by the kangaroo.

Many people are very puzzled when they see this news. A kangaroo that eats grass can only escape by pretending to be dead. Can a person still beat a kangaroo with his bare hands?

In fact, people who have such doubts have a great misunderstanding of the strength of kangaroos.

Kangaroo Boxing

Kangaroo boxing is not a metaphor, but a profession that kangaroos have really engaged in in history. Although it is now banned, the image of a kangaroo wearing boxing gloves is a cartoon image that many people are very familiar with and admired when they were young.

The first kangaroo boxer to become famous because of the competition was named Jack. In March 1891, he made his first boxing debut with his coach, Professor Lindeman.

Jack was raised by humans. He likes this stage very much. As an animal, he has no stage fright at all. Facing the attention of so many people, he enjoys it very much.

Due to Jack's excellent performance in boxing, people mistakenly thought that kangaroos like boxing, so the sport was born, and driven by the love and interests of the audience, it has also become popular in other countries, and even a showdown between clowns and kangaroos has appeared.

Europe and the United States also ushered in kangaroo boxing, and the United States later imported a kangaroo, Big Frank, who also competed with human professional boxers in 1893.

Slowly, it was discovered that kangaroos are not as docile as they seem, on the contrary they have multiple skills that can kill people. Fortunately, the popularity of this sport began to decline later, and the competition was gradually abolished, otherwise there would be many casualties.

But it has been around for a long time in popular culture. Many cartoons have the image of the boxing kangaroo, and there is a movie with the boxing kangaroo as the protagonist (1978 "Kangaroo").

Why are kangaroos so deadly?

Like pandas, kangaroos are also national treasures. A group of kangaroos jumping on the horizon is a calling card of Australia.

There are many kinds of kangaroos, and the body size varies greatly. The largest is the red kangaroo, which can reach up to 90 kg and 2 meters high. The smiling quokka (Thor once took a selfie with it) is also called kangaroo. . But the ones that can fight against people are generally those larger breeds.

How strong are kangaroos? A set of data can be used to illustrate:

1. It has a 5th leg and a strong tail, which can not only be used to balance the body, but also to support the body when standing. It can be a weapon when attacking, and a sweep can exceed 200 pounds;

2. The forelegs have 5 toes, which are small but flexible and can be used to grab food and also be used to drown dogs at special moments. The hind legs have 3 toes, each with sharp claws, and the middle of the hind legs. the longest paws;

3. Jumping and walking, one jump can reach 7 meters, the instantaneous speed can reach 70 kilometers per hour, and the stable speed is also 40 kilometers per hour;

4. The hind legs are muscular and can exert 759 pounds of kicking force. The forelimbs are weaker, and a punch has an impact force of almost 275 pounds. For comparison, an ordinary boxer can only swing a punch of about 700 pounds of force;

5. Strong jaws, the bite force can reach 925 pounds, slightly lower than the 975 pounds of the grizzly bear, and 6 times the bite force of humans (but the teeth are not sharp).

Let's see how the kangaroos attack?

For a long time, people think that the kangaroo stretches out its forelimbs to punch, but in fact, during a fight, the kangaroo stretches out its forelimbs to grab an object. Once caught, it jumps up and kicks with its hind legs. Towards the opponent, the forelimb grip is to improve the hit rate of the hind leg kick, ensuring "one kick is a hit"!

Imagine that the kangaroo is so heavy, kicked hard by its strong hind legs, and has sharp claws on its limbs. If you are lucky, your skin will be ripped open. If you are not lucky, it may be "opening your belly", as mentioned at the beginning Debbie's 35 stitches, that's how it came.

Reasons for Kangaroo Violence

Although kangaroos have "killing potential" and there are often exaggerated reports of kangaroos hurting people on the Internet, in fact, kangaroo attacks are rare in Australia, and most of the time they are very docile.

In most of the reported cases of kangaroo wounding, the kangaroo suddenly goes mad for a reason.

Kangaroos are gregarious animals, led by a male kangaroo with a grumpy personality.

There are generally two reasons for the irritability. One is that the territorial awareness is very strong, and other animals are not allowed to approach suddenly; the other is due to the special reproductive ability of kangaroos.

Kangaroos can reproduce all year round. Female kangaroos have two sets of reproductive organs, which work in turns, and almost always cycle in giving birth and raising children.

The kangaroo's child is called "joey", which is a premature baby. It is usually born around 5 weeks. It is very weak at birth, only a few centimeters. It must be raised in a female kangaroo's pouch for a period of time, relying on breast milk Big enough to crawl out of the pouch to live on its own until it's big enough to deal with the outside world.

And female kangaroos did not stop giving birth because of child rearing. Once Joey is born, it will immediately have another egg ready to carry the second child.

In other words, a female kangaroo is likely to have a pup in her womb and a joey in her pouch.

This kind of reproductive ability means that if males want to transmit their genes to the greatest extent, they must reproduce continuously. When looking for a mate, it is inevitable that there will be multiple male fights, which leads to male kangaroos having a bad temper.

In addition to natural causes, there are many man-made factors in the conflict between kangaroos and humans.

For example, humans have expanded their range of activities and have more and more opportunities to come into contact with kangaroos. Pets brought by humans, especially dogs, are the fuse of conflict between humans and kangaroos.

There are also human feeding and hunting behaviors. When kangaroos are used to human feeding, if people do not satisfy the kangaroos at that time, the kangaroos will be very disappointed, and then get angry and shoot.

Not to mention hunting, where hunting kangaroos is legal in some parts of Australia, and many kangaroos attack in self-defense, and it's reasonable.

at last

In a word, kangaroos are wild, large, muscular, and have good physical strength. They also have the blessing of their tails.

Unless you are lucky and hit a powerful part of the kangaroo's head with one blow, if you have no chance of winning or a weapon, please don't compete with the kangaroo at will. The kangaroo likes to be vegetarian, so playing dead is the best choice!