Think you know the number of legs a Kangaroo has? Read this

Kangaroos may be nature’s most elegant hoppers, but their walk is anything but graceful.

When foraging for food, these usually majestic creatures look ungainly and awkward as they attempt to balance their heavy bodies.

But now researchers have discovered that appearances may be deceiving, and there cumbersome movements are in fact helped by a fifth ‘limb’; their tails.

Scientists from Colorado, Sydney and Burnaby in Canada discovered that a kangaroo’s tail provide as much driving force as their front and hind legs combined.

‘We found that when a kangaroo is walking, it uses its tail just like a leg,’ said Associate Professor Maxwell Donelan of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada.

‘They use it to support, propel and power their motion. In fact, they perform as much mechanical work with their tails as we do with one of our legs.’

The researchers began the study thinking the tail was mainly used like a strut, a balancing pole, or a one-legged milking stool.

‘What we didn’t expect to find was how much power the tails of the kangaroos were producing. It was pretty darn surprising,’ said Associate Professor Rodger Kram at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Red kangaroos are the largest of the kangaroo species in Australia.

When grazing on grass, they move both hind feet forward ‘paired limb’ style while using their tails and front limbs together to support their bodies.

‘They appear to be awkward and ungainly walkers when one watches them moseying around in their mobs looking for something to eat,’ said Professor Kram.

‘But it turns out it is not really that awkward, just weird.’

In human movement, the back foot acts as the gas pedal and the front foot acts as a brake, which is not especially efficient, said Professor Kram.

Professor Donelan said no animal other than the kangaroo uses its tail like a leg. ‘Their tails have more than 20 vertebrae, taking on the role of our foot, calf, and thigh bones.’

This study showed that a kangaroo can increase its metabolism by 50 times during exercise.

The kangaroo tail also boosts balance when male kangaroos grab each other by the chests or shoulders, then rear back and kick each other in the stomach in an attempt to assert dominance for the purpose of reproduction.