This might be a really weird question, but why do Kangaroos jump instead of walk?
As a human jumping takes a lot more energy than jumping, so it must be something biological, but they are like the only animal family that does that (I’m sure there are more kangaroo-like animals I don’t know about)?
Edit – After seeing a few comments, this post isn’t about why the evolved to do so (even though it is an interesting question), I was asking what is the anatomical reasoning for it.
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There’s already quite a few good answers for kangaroos specifically so I’d just like to elaborate on something that the others brushed on.
Evolution isn’t planned. It’s the big take away here. We as humans have a tendency to ascribe intent to things that we shouldn’t. There is no “intent” to the evolutionary process it is *essentially* random. (Other then environmental pressures) I’m not accusing you of thinking like this but I feel like this point needs to be addressed.
Kangaroos didn’t *choose* to jump instead of walk. They jump because their ancestors (as I understand it) couldn’t move their hind legs individually and didn’t end up dying when they made a a transition to the ground.
It’s likely that the ones who were better at hoping survived more often (be that because it helps to evade predators or because it’s an efficient way to move) then the ones that didn’t hop or didn’t hop very well. That “selection pressure” caused the roo ancestors to trend towards animals that were better at hopping and defending themselves.
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