Is the wallaby related to the kangaroo?

A wallaby could be mistaken for a teen age kangaroo. The two animals are closely related and zoologists classify them in the same family. Their family is a branch of the amazing order Marsupialia. A marsupial animal, as we know, spends his infancy safely stashed away inside his mother's built toting pouch. Our opossum is a member of the Marsupialia order, but almost all the world's other marsupials are native Australians.

The animal family name Macropodidae is coined from older words meaning "big" and "foot." It includes the great grey kangaroo and the equally large red kangaroo. The midget of the long footed family is the rabbit sized kangaroo rat. The smallest of the wallabies is not much bigger. This bouncy fellow is the hare

sized bare wallaby. The tree wallaby eats and sleeps in the trees. He may stand three feet tall and when pushed can leap along like a champion. The common rock wallaby is about the same size but he prefers life in rocky gullies. There is also a scrub kangaroo with small hind feet and a stubby tail. He lives in a burrow under dry desert grasses. All these wallabies are members of the kangaroo family. They strongly resemble the six foot giant of the Macropodidae family  who is Old Man Kangaroo himself.