How would a kangaroo-drawn chariot work?
I'm building basically Australian Wakanda, if you'll forgive the pop culture reference.
Australian aboriginal culture never made their own wheeled vehicles, but what if they had?
https://pic8.co/sh/nQWLdR.png
The closest thing to a potential beast of burden on their continent is the kangaroo (right?) (PS: emus are pretty big and run very fast)
speedofanimals.com/animals/kangaroo says a red kangaroo can sustain a speed of 40km/h for two km, which is impressive, and compares well with the speed of camels.
Could they do more than 2km at a time? What's their endurance like? How far do wild kangaroos travel in a day? Could they go 40-50km a day like a horse can?
How many would be needed to pull the chariot? I'm picturing a lightweight chariot, not a cart. Build for speed, not to carry heavy loads like a wagon.
The red kangaroo ranges over nearly the whole continent, and is very strong — two big advantages. The Eastern grey kangaroo is smaller, though not by much, and has been recorded going faster (Wikipedia: Eastern grey kangaroo), though again I don't know if it's a sprinter or has endurance. 922
It has a much more limited range and isn't adapted to Australia's deserts, making it a less attractive candidate, IMO, though I could be convinced otherwise.
What about the psychology and trainability? I think kangaroos have been put in circuses, implying training them is not an impossibility. Are their brains capable of bonding with humans? Do they do anything at circuses besides beat people up? Maybe they couldn't be tamed (in one generation) but could be domesticated (by breeding in captivity for generations) what do you think?
Thanks for reading.
PS: found this December 2020 article which says they can communicate with people, and says that the Western Grey kangaroo is more friendly: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2263145-kangaroos-can-learn-to-ask-for-help-from-humans-just-like-dogs-do/
PPS: Eastern Grey "Kangaroos moved on average 2.39 ± 0.62 km per day (accumulative distance between location fixes over a day) with the maximum distance moved by an individual on a single day being 4.39 km" according to GPS tags: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6025337/ - that's not enough for a useful beast of burden
PPPS: a paper from 2013 'Energy, water and space use by free-living red kangaroos Macropus Rufus and domestic sheep <PERSON> in an Australian rangeland' reports they travelled an average 3.646 ± 0.301 km per day. You'd think it'd be further with them so big and fast. 249