Kangaroos

I’m not really sure if this is the type of knowledge-bomb one would drop when trying to impress someone but then again I’ve never much been concerned about my impression on others. I’m more of the 13 year old boy trapped in a 40 year old woman’s body when it comes to small talk. The bread and butter of my sense of humor is my unapologetic love of dick and fart jokes and I’m not afraid to admit it.

In my early thirties I worked at a call center in tech support for one of the nation’s largest tax and accounting software developers. You’re probably picturing a bunch of highly professional men and women sitting around a conference room table in suits and ties and crunching last year sales figures but let me assure you that is not at all the case. Instead, tech support typically employs a group of pimply 20 somethings still living in their mother’s basement, housewives whose children no longer need constant supervision and various social misfits with brains beyond their homely appearances. Truth be told we were all sitting around in our pajamas or other disheveled attire with hair unbrushed and shoving our faces full of bagels, candy and whatever else our trainer had provided to fatten us up for the tax season slaughter.

While we all sat half asleep learning about filing statuses, Schedule C forms and exemptions a quiet chuckle was heard from the back of the room. Our training class had its fair share of inappropriate interruptions and today was no different. For example, yesterday we watched the SNL skit that made me fall more in love with Justin Timberlake, “Dick in a Box”. Our instructor couldn’t abate her curiosity and asked “ Do you wanna share what’s so funny”?

Krista could hardly contain her laughter and burst out “Kangaroos have their balls on top!”

The entire class immediately began furiously typing in their various search engines to validate this fact. We may have been a bunch of social castaways but accurate information sharing was our job. Sure enough, kangaroos do have an odd testicular location.

Jessica Zimmerman reports in “Kangaroo genitals are weirder than you ever thought possible” on grist.org that “nature is fucking weird. And nothing fucks weirder than kangaroos”. She wasn’t exaggerating because not only do male kangaroos have odd genitalia but female kangaroos have three vaginas!

Check out these and other interesting kangaroo reproductive system factoids from Jessica’s article:

• Kangaroo testicles are above the penis and “highly mobile” says Ed Yong, science blogger to the stars.
• Kangaroos have three vaginas. The outside two are for sperm and lead to two uteruses. The middle one is for giving birth.
• The urinary tract goes through the middle of the three vaginas, which may be why joeys are so small (40,000 times smaller than adult kangaroos) — there’s no room for a bigger birth canal with the urinary tract in the way.
• To go with the two sperm-vaginas, male kangaroos often have two-pronged penises.
• Because they have two uteruses plus a pouch, female kangaroos can be perpetually pregnant.

As if the baby making organs alone weren’t strange enough we also have the issue of the pouch. Wikipedia states “Marsupials give birth to a live but relatively undeveloped fetus called a joey. When the joey is born it crawls from inside the mother to the pouch. The pouch is a fold of skin with a single opening that covers the teats. Inside the pouch, the blind offspring attaches itself to one of the mother’s teats and remains attached for as long as it takes to grow and develop to a juvenile stage”. Can you imagine the horror of having your baby permanently attached to your nipple for 18 months? But wait there’s more...

Do you remember the episode of Seinfeld that dropped this bombshell? “The male kangaroo doesn’t have a pouch. Only the female has it. So the male has pouch envy! Why should she have this huge pouch and I have nothing? I have things to carry too. At least give me a pocket!”

As humorous as it is, fact is not always stranger than fiction and this tidbit of ‘roo knowledge is false. Sadly, my mental image of male kangaroos stretching their belly skin to make fake pouches is but a dream.

So the next time you find yourself at an art gallery opening cocktail party or dinner with your new in-laws drop some kangaroo penis facts like Kanye drops the mic. They’re sure to be impressed by your vast knowledge of ‘roo junk which will allow you a lovely segue to some classic dick and fart jokes.