Marty’s photo of the day #2634: It’s “Animals A thru Z Month.” Each day in August, I will post an animal I’ve photographed—somewhere in the world—in alphabetical order.
W is for Wallaby. Wallabies are small-to-medium sized kangaroos—members of the Macropodidae family. The wallaby in this photo is Herbie, an adolescent agile wallaby who had lost his mother. One of the signs that Herbie was almost ready to be released into the wild was his desire to spar with people as he would have sparred with wallabies in the wild. Sometimes he’d let me hold or pet him; other times he’d slap my hands or grab them with his sharp nails. Though he scratched me several times, the temporary discomfort was a small price to pay for the unique experience of sparring with a wallaby.