Hopping news - how the kangaroo got its bounce

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tammar_Wallaby.jpg

Researchers have laid bare the DNA of a kangaroo species for the first time.

An international team of scientists, writing in the Biomed Central journal, Genome Biology, say they have even indentified a gene responsible for the kangaroo's hop.

The group focussed on a small species of kangaroo that inhabits islands off Australia's south and western coasts.

The tammar wallaby (Macropus eugenii) is only the third marsupial to have its genome sequenced. Making up the trio are the Tasmanian devil and the South American opossum.