The fairytale love story of a kangaroo apparently mourning the loss of its recently departed mate, captured by a Queensland photographer, is just that, a fairytale, a wildlife expert says.

Hervey Bay's Evan Switzer captured the images of a male kangaroo apparently cradling the head of a dead female as a joey looks on but Australian Museum mammalogist Mark Eldridge said they have been "fundamentally misinterpreted".

Dr Eldridge said Mr Switzer captured the male in a state of sexual arousal, not mourning her loss, as the photographer perceived him to be.

"The kangaroo is not, unfortunately, propp[ing] up her head so she could see her joey before she died," he said.