These genera are allied to the suborder Macropodiformes, containing other macropods, and are native to the Australian continent (the mainland and Tasmania), New Guinea and nearby islands.

The molars are large and, unusually, do not appear all at once but a pair at a time at the back of the mouth as the animal ages, eventually becoming worn down by the tough, abrasive grasses and falling out.

These low emissions are partly explained by the anatomical differences between the macropodid digestive system and that of ruminants, resulting in shorter retention times of particulate digesta within the foregut.

This fact might prevent the establishment of methanogenic archaea, which has been found in low levels in tammar wallabies (Notamacropus eugenii) and eastern grey kangaroo (M. giganteus).

Metagenomic analysis revealed that the foregut of tammar wallabies mainly contains bacteria belonging to the phyla Bacillota, Bacteroidota, and Pseudomonadota.

The term macropod comes from the Greek for "large foot" and is appropriate: most have very long, narrow hind feet with a distinctive arrangement of toes.

[citation needed] The ability of larger macropods to survive on poor-quality, low-energy feed, and to travel long distances at high speed without great energy expenditure (to reach fresh food supplies or waterholes, and to escape predators) has been crucial to their evolutionary success on a continent that, because of poor soil fertility and low, unpredictable average rainfall, offers only very limited primary plant productivity.

[11] The evolutionary ancestors of marsupials split from placental mammals during the Jurassic period about 160 million years ago (Mya).

A Queensland fossil of a species similar to Hadronomas has been dated at around 5.33 to 11.61 Mya, falling in the Late Miocene or Early Pliocene.