Here is a fine example of a thatched kangaroo this time on a roof in Suffolk and the work of Clive Dodson, Master Thatcher of Cambridgeshire. It is very close to a thatched address we sweep at in West Wickham. There is another Thatched Kangaroo on a roof in this country, this one being on the roof of a tearoom in Godshill on the Isle of Wight. It actually caused quite a stir when it first went up. Under the BBC headline ‘Kangaroo told to hop off’, it was reported that the owner of the Royal Essex Cottage restaurant and tea room was having to apply for planning permission for the large thatched kangaroo when locals complained of its presence! The locals stated that the three-foot-high Kangaroo did not fit in with the heritage of the area.

The kangaroo is a marsupial from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning “large foot”). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern grey kangaroo, and western grey kangaroo. Kangaroos are indigenous to Australia and New Guinea. The Australian government estimates that 34.3 million kangaroos lived within the commercial harvest areas of Australia in 2011, up from 25.1 million one year earlier.

As with the terms “wallaroo” and “wallaby“, “kangaroo” refers to a paraphyletic grouping of species. All three refer to members of the same taxonomic family, Macropodidae, and are distinguished according to size. The largest species in the family are called “kangaroos” and the smallest are generally called “wallabies”. The term “wallaroos” refers to species of an intermediate size. There are also the tree-kangaroos, another type of macropod, which inhabit the tropical rainforests of New Guinea, far northeastern Queensland and some of the islands in the region.