Cook reported the sighting of a strange animal which was: “of a light mouse colour and the full size of a Grey Hound, and shaped in every respect like one, with a long tail, which it carried like a Grey Hound; in short, I should have taken it for a wild dog but for its walking or running, in which it jumped like a Hare or Deer” (Haviland, (1987:pp. 161-239)).

Joseph Banks recorded in his journal that the natives called it the ‘Kangooroo’ and it was confirmed by American Linguist John Haviland after 1979 that the word exists in the local language as ‘gangurru’ and denotes the ‘black kangaroo’.