Which country is famous for the kangaroo?

Australia, which has more kangaroos than people - somewhere between 30 and 50 million against 27 million - and puts one on its coat of arms alongside the emu, reportedly because neither animal can easily walk backwards.

The hop is the point. Above a certain speed, hopping costs a kangaroo almost nothing extra: the huge Achilles tendons act as springs, storing the energy of each landing and returning it to the next bound, so a kangaroo can go faster without burning more fuel - which is the reverse of how running works for us. The tail is not a prop but a fifth limb that carries real propulsive force at walking pace.

The name's origin story is a good example of a myth that refuses to die. It is often said that gangurru means I don't understand you in an Aboriginal language, a joke at Cook's expense. In fact linguists working with Guugu Yimithirr speakers in the 1970s confirmed that gangurru is simply their word for a large black kangaroo, which is exactly what Cook was told and exactly what he wrote down.