The female kangaroo has three vaginas, two uteruses and carries her young in a pouch. The male kangaroo has a long, pointed penis
located behind his scrotum. The male kangaroo doesn’t have a pouch or nipples.Kangaroos do not have separate openings for intestinal,
urinary, and genital tracts.
Koalas, wombats and Tasmanian devils all share the three-vagina structure.
The side ones carry sperm to the two uteruses (and males marsupials often have two-pronged penises),
while the middle vagina sends the joey down to the outside world. Instead, they have a single opening, called a cloaca,
in which all these functions are served.The male kangaroo reaches
sexual maturity at approximately 24 months, and the female at around 16 months.
Kangaroo genitals are weirder than you ever thought possible because they have three vaginas
With this unusual reproductive system, a female kangaroo can be continuously pregnant, with a fertilised egg in one uterus waiting to
be released, a baby growing in the other uterus, one in her pouch and another hopping outside but coming to its mother for milk. In this
way, a female kangaroo can take care of multiple joeys at different stages of development.
Another unique feature of these animals is that during drought and starvation, the female
kangaroo can practice birth control by putting
the babies growing in her uteruses ‘on hold’, stopping their future development until conditions improve.
When the mother’s pouch becomes free, the next baby will be born and move into
the pouch, and the fertilised egg “on hold” in a uterus will start developing into a new foetus. Because of this multiple-offspring
strategy and other adaptabilities unique to the kangaroo, populations can increase rapidly when food is plentiful.
Note that the ureters, which carry urine from the kidneys to the bladder, pass through the gaps between the three tubes.
In placental mammals, like us, the ureters develop in a different way, and don’t go through the reproductive system.
