Josh Clark

It doesn't make any sense to me.

Oh, I didn't know that.

Wow.

What a development.

And it makes a really satisfying boring sound.

Oh, of course.

So what's great about this, you said that the kangaroo is the only land animal that, or an only large mammal that hops.

And the reason why it hops is because it's actually a tremendous adaptation for moving quickly across land in a really efficient manner.

Because the way that the kangaroo is built is,

The faster they hop, the less energy they have to expend.

It's a pretty beautiful system.

Yeah, and they also have to use less muscle energy in their legs because when they jump really far, high and fast, when they land, those super elastic tendons that help them hop just contract even further.

And that means that they expand or sproing, I think is the technical term, even further.

So when they get going, they really can just keep going a while.

Also, their heart is really attuned to this kind of endurance workout, right?

Yeah.

It's when they're not going fast, when they're just kind of hopping from place to place and grazing, that's when it's harder.

And they have to end up using their tail to kind of balance themselves.

It's basically like, well, a third foot.

Yeah.