WHAT ARE KOALAS?
Koalas are marsupials, related to kangaroos. Most marsupials have pouches or pockets of fur where the tiny newborns develop. A koala mother usually gives birth to one joey at a time. A newborn koala is only the size of a jelly bean. Called a joey, the baby is blind, naked, and earless. As soon as it's born, this tiny creature makes its way from the birth canal to its mother's pouch.
A female koala is pregnant for only 35 days before giving birth; most of the joey's growth and development takes place in the mother's pouch.
Using the two well-developed senses it's born with—smell and touch—along with its strong front legs and claws and an instinct that tells it which direction to head, the baby koala reaches the pouch. There it stays, safely tucked away, growing and developing for about seven months.
Once a newborn koala latches onto a nipple in its mother's pouch, the nipple swells in its mouth so the joey can't be separated from its food source.
After a baby has been in the pouch for about six months, its mother begins to produce a special substance called pap.The joey feeds on this in addition to the milk it's already getting. Pap comes from the mother's intestines and contains bacteria that the joey needs to have in its own intestines so that it can digest an adult diet of eucalyptus leaves.
At about seven months, the joey leaves the pouch to eat leaves, but returns to it to nurse. By the time the joey is about one year old, it stops nursing and eats just leaves.
Text by Catherine D. Hughes
FAST FACTS
The scientific name for the koala is Phascolarctos cinereus.
Koalas are marsupials; newborn koalas—called joeys—continue to develop in their mothers' pouches.
Koalas have thick woolly fur that protects them from both heat and cold. It also acts like a raincoat.
Koalas and most other marsupials live in Australia and neighboring islands. The only marsupial native to North America is the Virginia opossum.
The word koala may come from an Aboriginal word meaning no drink.
Although koalas do drink when necessary, they obtain most of the moisture they need from leaves.
In an ideal habitat in the wild, male koalas live about 10 years, while females may live a few years longer.
Though koalas are fluffy and cute, and look like teddy bears and are sometimes even referred to as koala bears, they are not bears.
DO KOALAS HAVE ANY ENEMIES?
Thousands of koalas are killed each year by cars and dogs. Although they spend all of thier lives high in the treetops, where they are safe from enemies.
Sometimes they are attacked by wedge-tailed eagles, pythons, or even giant lizards, and by wild dogs of Australia called dingoes, if they find them on the ground.
People unfortanatly are the koala's worst enemy. Many forest areas where koalas live are being destroyed to make room for cities, roads and farmland. With less and less eucalyptus trees and forests, koalas have less and less food to eat and no where to live, this forces the koala to look for new trees to eat and many koalas or hurt or killed trying to cross roads to reach new trees. |
PEOPLE AND KOALAS
The eastern half of Australia is the only home to Koalas. They iive in forests of eucaluptus trees. Koalas are designed to live in trees. Each of its hands has two thumbs. Their thumbs are ideal for grabbing branches. The koalas claws on its hands and feet are also to help the koala climb the trees it lives in.
People used to hunt koalas for their fur. Now strict laws protect them from hunters, but their habitat is not protected, and it is disappearing as land is developed.
More than four-fifths of original koala habitat has been destroyed. People are trying to save what is left.
Koalas spend as many as 18 hours a day napping and resting.
Koalas smell like cough drops because of their diet of eucalyptus leaves.
There are many kinds of eucalyptus trees. Koalas will eat from only a few of these.
Koalas in different areas like different kinds of eucalyptus leaves.
Koalas in the cooler southern areas of Australia are bigger and have thicker fur than their northern relatives.
Female koalas are smaller than males.
Southern koalas weigh between 20 and 30 pounds (9 and 14 kilograms) and northern koalas weigh between 13 and 16 pounds (6 and 7 kilograms).
Koalas feed mainly at night.
Koalas have thick, grayish fur, with white on their chests, inner arms, and ears. They have large furry ears and leathery noses.
Koalas live in trees, sometimes coming down to the ground to seek shade or another tree. They occasionally jump from one tree to the next.
Mature males have brown scent glands in the center of their white chests. They rub these on their home trees to mark their territory.
Koalas are found in the wild only in the forests of eastern Australia.
Koalas live in bushland with other koalas. Each has its own home trees which are generally not visited by other koalas except in mating season.
Koalas have their own built-in cushion! The fur on a koala's bottom is extra thick so that the koala can comfortably rest in trees.
Fossils of 12 different extinct species of koala have been found. These extinct koalas were much larger than the ones today. They were like giant koalas!
Reference:
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/
Book: NEW NATURE BOOKS KOALAS, By Sandra Lee
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