Subtitles section Play video
-
With fluffy ears, round heads, and spoon-shaped noses, koalas are known for their lovable faces.
-
But these sleepy, Australian tree dwellers are full of surprises.
-
Koalas are not bears, they're marsupials.
-
Often mislabeled koala bears because of their teddy bear-like appearance, koalas are marsupials: mammals that give birth to undeveloped young.
-
Like most marsupials, mother koalas have pouches, where baby koalas, or joeys, drink their mother's milk and continue to develop for around six months.
-
But unlike most other marsupials, koala pouches open toward the bottom.
-
This allows joeys to access and consume a substance their mother secretes, which aids in the baby koala's digestion.
-
Koalas have six opposable thumbs.
-
With sharp pointed claws and rough pads, koala hands and feet are uniquely designed to grip branches.
-
Their front paws have five digits.
-
Two digits oppose the other three like a pair of thumbs.
-
Their back paws each have one large clawless opposable digit, which allows them to grasp branches with their feet, freeing their hands to forage.
-
Koala feet also have built-in combs.
-
The second and third toes are fused together and are used for grooming their wooly fur.
-
Koalas eat leaves that are poisonous to many animals.
-
The koala diet consists almost entirely of eucalyptus leaves.
-
Of the roughly 650 species of eucalypt trees in Australia, koalas prefer only about 30 of them.
-
The leathery leaves are very high in fiber and contain chemicals toxic to other animals.
-
To process this specialized diet, koalas have a closed-ended digestive organ called a caecum, which helps digest the leaf fibers via fermentation.
-
Koalas sleep up to 22 hours per day.
-
Because of their low nutrition diets and sluggish metabolism, koalas must conserve their energy.
-
Koalas spend about 10% of their day eating and around 90% of their time sleeping.
-
To accommodate so much time spent sleeping in tree branches, koalas have curved spines and tail-less rears padded with cartilage and extra thick fur.
-
Koala habitat is quickly disappearing.
-
Koalas only live in eastern and southeastern Australia, and once numbered in the millions.
-
Now, wild koala population estimates vary from 43,000 to around 350,000.
-
Vast tree clearing due to urbanization, along with droughts and forest fires, have drastically reduced koala habitats since the early 1900s.
-
These stressors have made koalas vulnerable to diseases, as well as dog attacks and vehicle strikes.
-
Australia's conservation plans include designating and protecting koala habitat, and funding koala hospitals and disease research.
-
These combined efforts are critical to protect the beloved koala from extinction.