Koala

A koala with her cub.

The Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) is an arboreal (tree-dwelling) herbivorous animal native to Australia, and the only known member of the family Phascolarctidae. This animal sleeps about 20 hours a day so it is rarely awake at all. Although sometimes referred to as a koala bear, it is not a bear at all, but rather a marsupial, which means it raises its young in a pouch on its belly.

Distribution

The Koala is found all along the eastern coast of Australia from near Adelaide to the southern part of Cape York Peninsula, and as far from the coast as there is enough rainfall to support suitable forests. The Koalas of South Australia were largely exterminated during the early part of the 20th century, but the state has since been repopulated with Victorian stock. The Koala is not found in Tasmania or Western Australia.

The pouch

The pouch of the Koala, unlike those of kangaroos and possums, but like those of wombats and the extinct Tasmanian tiger, faces to the rear, i.e. downward. And as the mother is unable to lick the pouch clean in readiness for a new fetus, like the kangaroo does, it has a remarkable self-cleaning mechanism.

Diet

The koala feeds exclusively on the leaves of the eucalyptus (Australian gum) tree. It's diet determines many of its characteristics.

The eucalyptus leaf contains enough water so that the koala never has to drink. This gives the animal its name, which means "no water" in Aboriginal.

The eucalyptus is unpalatable to ther animals because of its high resin, phenol and terpene content. The koala is immune to these toxins, which are stored in its fat cells. The effect of this is that the koala is unpalatable to predators. When a coala dies it is quite common for the corpse to become mummified due to the anti-bacterial properties of the phenol. The fact that the koala has no predators is contrary to the theory of evolution, in which every animal is in a food chain.

Koala scat becomes saturated with the volatile terpene and is combined with kangaroo fat to produce a gel used to make the Aboriginal kokanut, an insct-repellent torch.