Is it true that kangaroo can only move their legs at the same time, like they can’t move them independently leg humans or dogs do?
yes with an exception: when kangaroos are on land, they use their legs together for hopping, but when they swim, they alternate which leg is kicking just like humans and dogs do!
so they CAN, they just don't unless they think they need to.
This has not always been the case however! Australia used to have another group of kangaroos called the sthenurines, also known as "short-faced kangaroos" (skeleton A below). They were proportioned quite differently, with larger bodies and shorter legs, feet and tails:
They were so differently proportioned, and some species grew so large, than hopping like a modern kangaroo was probably physically impossible for them, so researchers have proposed that they walked bipedally instead!
Members of Sthenurinae – an ancient family of kangaroos that lived until 30,000 years ago - likely preferred walking to hopping.
There are multiple delightfully cursed reconstructions of this behaviour which makes them look more like a person running around pretending to be a dinosaur than anything else
Interestingly, there was a very recent study on these same giant sthenurines (as well as a bunch of other gigantic kangaroos like Protemnodon and Macropus titan) looking at various indicators of jumping abilities that found that they were in fact capable of hopping, even if they'd likely prefer to walk on two legs Jones, M.E., Jones, K. & Nudds, R.L. Biomechanical limits of hopping in the hindlimbs of giant extinct kangaroos. Sci Rep 16, 1309 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-29939-7 (paper is open access!)
So they'd have been the opposite of modern kangaroos, prefering to walk by moving their legs independently but bounding with their legs synchronized if necessary like when a predator attacked.
Also Sthenurines kangaroos likely employed an almost human like walk with an upright trunk, using their long clawed forelimbs for grabbing at branches to feed on. They actually have a number of convergent traits with humans like a broad sacrum to support their vertical trunk, an enlarged femoral head for the same purpose, as well as enlarged muscles for balancing the body when supporting their weight on one leg at a time. Janis CM, Buttrill K, Figueirido B. Locomotion in extinct giant kangaroos: were sthenurines hop-less monsters? PLoS One. 2014 Oct 15;9(10):e109888. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0109888. PMID: 25333823; PMCID: PMC4198187. (also open access!)
Oh and I should also add that modern tree kangaroos can actually walk on two legs, which looks very silly
