The Amazing Koala

Did you know a koala's fingerprints are virtually indistinguishable from a humans? If you had two sets of fingerprints on a crime scene, even the best detective could confuse human prints with koala prints. This is just one amazing fact about beautiful koalas, which have been mistakenly called bears for ages. Our children often snuggle teddy bears that are designed to look like koalas, but koalas are actually not bears at all. They are marsupials with kangaroo-like pouches for carrying their young. Koalas are a very interesting species and they are becoming more endangered with each passing day.

What Do Koalas Look Like?
Koalas are beautiful animals with soft gray fur and oversized noses. They have lean, muscular bodies with strong arms and legs to support their constant climbing. Koalas have specially adapted paws with rough pads on their palms and sharp claws. They are covered with thick, wooly fur to protect them from temperature extremes. Their fur also acts as a raincoat to repel moisture when it rains. Patches of white fur color their inner ears, chin, chest, neck, and small areas on their rumps.

Adult male koalas have a noticeable brown scent gland on the middle of their chests, which they use to mark the territory of their home trees. The koala's big nose is one of its most noted features, covered in dark leathery skin. They also have large ears which match their amazing hearing abilities.

Female koalas are smaller than males, but they have pouches that open on the bottom. Females and young males have plain white chests in contrast to the brown spot on the adult males' chests. Male koalas also have noticeable external genitalia.

Do Koalas Have Many Babies?
Koalas breed between August and February every year. Females begin breeding when they are three or four years old and can produce only one baby each year. Some koalas only produce every two to three years, giving the average koala mother five or six children in her average twelve year lifespan.

Baby koalas are fascinating creatures. Babies are born only thirty-five days after conception, but they are only the size of jelly beans at birth. Baby koalas, also called joeys, are blind and hairless with no ears. After birth, the joey relies on its sense of smell to make the journey to the pouch, where it attaches to its mother's teat and nurses on her special milk. The baby remains in the pouch for six or seven months, slowly developing eyes, ears, and fur. When the joey reaches six months old, it begins to feed on its mother's pap in addition to the milk. Pap is a special kind of feces which prepares the joey's digestive system for the eucalyptis leaves it will soon need to digest. It will eventually grow enough to feed on leaves and ride on its mother's back. Young koalas stay with their mothers for at least a year before they venture out to find their own home trees.

What Is Life Like For A Koala?
Koalas are nocturnal animals and they sleep around twenty hours each day. The cuddly creatures require a lot of sleep to produce enough energy to digest their fibrous diets. The koala's home is composed of several home trees that stand within a home range. Koalas sometimes have overlapping home ranges and they communicate with loud snores and belches called bellows. They are careful not to approach the home trees of other koalas, which are marked by scent. Even after a koala dies, other koalas will not inhabit its area for at least a year. It can take that long for its scent markings to wear off enough to appear safe.

Are Koalas Endangered?
Koalas have already lost most of their homes and researchers estimate there are less than 100,000 koalas left in the wild. These beautiful animals are losing their lives daily to habitat destruction, dog attacks, bushfires, and car accidents. You can learn more about saving koalas at www.savethekoala.com.

Koalas are cute, cuddly little animals with interesting lifestyles and habitats. While they begin as tiny little joeys, they grow to be a beautiful part of Australia's natural landscapes. It is imperitive that we work hard to preserve the koala's habitat so we can continue to enjoy its beauty throughout history.