A spokesman at Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park Zoo says a baby red kangaroo likely fell out of her mother's pouch after something frightened her.
The tiny, hairless kangaroo, weighing just under 600 grams, was discovered on the floor of the kangaroo enclosure a few days ago.
Robert Wrigley, the zoo's curator, says typically when something scares a kangaroo mother, she somehow ejects the babies -- called joeys -- from her pouch.
He says it's a natural mechanism that lightens the load the mother is carrying and allows her to get away from something potentially dangerous.
Wrigley says it's rare for joeys this young to survive outside the mother's pouch and it's difficult to feed them because their mouths are so small.
The kangaroo, named Rooby, is being fed every few hours to improve her chance of survival.
If she lives, zoo staff will have to care for the kangaroo for the next eight months until she's big enough to rejoin her family.
Baby kangaroos seldom survive out of the pouch at this early age, since they are dependant on their mother's milk inside the pouch for up to a year.
But with feedings of milk formula every three hours, around the clock, the baby's chances of survival are improving every day.
Her caregivers say she spends most of the time sleeping soundly, nestled in a soft towel within a cloth bag, which substitutes for her mother's pouch.
If the joey makes it through these precarious early weeks, she will need zookeeper care for another eight months, until she can be reunited with "the mob" - the name given to a group of kangaroos.
Like other marsupial mammals, baby kangaroos are born at a remarkably early stage of development - after a gestation period of only 33 days and just 2.5-cm long and weighing less than one gram.
This blind and naked baby must then climb unassisted all the way from the mother's birth canal to the abdominal pouch, crawl inside, and find a nipple, to which it remains attached for over 70 days.
The Red Kangaroo is the largest living marsupial, with males standing up to 2.1 metres (7 feet) high and reaching 95 kg (210 lbs) - a 135,715-fold increase in body weight from birth.
The female is considerably smaller, averaging 30 kg. Under good habitat conditions, a female may breed continuously, with one embryo in a resting stage in the womb, one joey in the pouch, and a dependant joey living outside the pouch.
This species may live up to 25 years and makes a fascinating zoo exhibit due to its unusual appearance and bounding gait on its powerful hind legs. The Red Kangaroo is native to most of Australia, where it fulfills the role of a major herbivore, which sometimes places it in conflict with sheep and cattle ranchers.
