About half a minute after this photo was taken a car drove past and one of the kangaroos jumped out in front of it (good instincts there, Skippy). The driver slammed on the brakes, the other 2 kangaroos bounced down onto the road to help with the "getting in the way" duties, and happily they all survived. Which no doubt saddened Sammy, my parents' cat, who has recently discovered that owing to a terrible shopping miscalculation his breakfasting needs for tomorrow morning (kangaroo meat) may well not be met.
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The kangaroo has evolved over millennia in total isolation from the motor vehicle. Thus, these strange antipodean beasts fail to recognise the mortal threat posed by rapidly advancing shiny machines. Given enough time, and with some genetic variation in the kangaroo's propensity to wait for oncoming traffic, and indeed enough motor vehicles driven by witless drivers, one could conceive of the evolution of a kangaroo species that jumps to the side of the road to avoid a messy and painful death. But such a Darwinian outcome could only eventuate over many generations -- enough to fuel the Australian petfood industry for decades to come. I think it was a Douglas Adams' character whose famous last words were: 'Here comes a car; I wonder if it wants to be friends?'.
Thank you, and good night.
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