The Matschie’s tree kangaroo has curved claws and spongy pads on its back feet to help it climb trees. Using its long tail for balance, the tree kangaroo can leap 30 feet between trees, and drop up to 60 feet to the ground without being harmed.

Interestingly, the Matschie’s tree kangaroo always climbs down trees tail-first as opposed to animals like the opossum that go down head-first.

Matschie’s tree kangaroos live in the rain forests of Papua New Guinea at elevations up to 10,000 feet! These tree-dwelling marsupials can grow anywhere from 1.5-2.5 feet tall and weigh 15-25 pounds.

The tree kangaroos are incredible as all marsupials once lived in the trees until they developed into ground-dwellers. The tree kangaroos are the only ones to have moved back up into the trees.

Matschie’s tree kangaroos will primarily eat leaves in the wild, but also like to feast on ferns, flowers like orchids, tree bark, and even moss.

Female Matschie’s tree kangaroos give birth to one offspring, called a joey, after a little over a month of gestation. Once the joey is born, it has to crawl and pull itself into the pouch. It stays in the pouch for 10 months, which is when the most development will occur. Throughout this time of the joey being in the pouch, the mother will clean the pouch and groom the joey often.

The joeys are weaned when they are about 13-months-old. At 18 months, they will leave their mothers to establish their own territory. A male Matschie’s tree kangaroo will have a territory that may overlap with some females’ territories but never with another male’s.

In the rain forests, the temperature can fluctuate rapidly and it gets pretty warm. Since the Matschie’s tree kangaroo doesn’t sweat, it will lick its forearms and let the evaporation cool its body. This tree kangaroo is also able to comfortably live in this environment from its metabolic rate.

They are named after Paul Matschie, a German zoologist who discovered this animal along with several other species of tree-kangaroo.