What do you think of when you hear Australia? Besides the Aussie accent, koalas & kangaroos, duh. Well, let the truth be told, I took WAY too many pictures of the koalas but I couldn't help it!! They're adorable and even though, contrary to popular belief, they are not ALL over the place, you can find them here & there. I learned a lot about koalas at the Sydney Wildlife World so I won't have to copy and paste all of the information from Wikipedia this time around. :) There are multiple koala sanctuaries all over the east coast of Australia (koalas don't inhabit the western side of the country) and, although the species is not considered threatened, many organizations and interest groups have dedicated themselves to 'saving' the koalas. Although koalas were once hunted, their leading threats today are, believe it or not, dog attacks and traffic accidents. Habitat loss as a result of urbanization is also a major concern for the future of the koala. But as of right now, there are lots of koalas and I was lucky enough to get to see my fair share.
Koalas have two thumbs to climbing trees. Weird, huh?:
Baby koalas are called joeys, who would've thought? Baby koalas are born without hair, ears, or vision. I'm going to assume they're not very cute. Considering koalas are marsupials, they have a pouch where they keep their newborn joeys for approximately six months. After that the babies tend to leave the pouch but stick around the same area as their mothers for up to about a year if they're a girl and for two to three years for the boys. They must be momma's boys. :)
They spend the rest of the day eating eucalyptus:
And then back to sleep:
Koalas have the strangest brains. Apparently, once upon a time, their ancestor's brains filled the entire cranial cavity but today's koalas aren't quite so smart. Something like 42% of their cranial cavity is filled with cerebral fluid and the size of their brain is compared to two shriveled walnuts. Poor things. Scientists consider the diminishing brain size to be somewhat of a mystery and haven't seen that same kind of degenerate evolution in any other species of animal. 
AND ... koalas have fingerprints. How cool is that? Not many mammals do. Apparently they are eerily similar to human fingerprints, even under a microscope. 
It's also true that koalas have been known to be quite violent when they feel threatened or are surprised. So, never sneak up on a koala. They have really sharp claws and the few teeth that they do have are also pretty sharp. I was able to see both their claws and teeth up close at the Wildlife World. Trust me, you don't want to mess with a koala. 
While I was there the koalas were up and active and I was able to go into the sanctuary area and pet and feed them. It was really, really cool. There weren't many other people there and the lady that was caring for the koalas was exceptionally nice and let me hold one. But apparently it was against the rules, so shhh. :)
This is the little guy that I got to hold:
He was adorable and cuddly and I kind of wanted to take him home. At least those were my thoughts in the first 30 seconds ... then he got kind of heavy and I realized how sharp his claws were (especially since they were digging into my arm) and then he tried to bite me. Ok not really, he was more like kind of nuzzling my neck, but he was way too close for comfort. He had to go back to his tree & I lost all desire to have a pet koala. much love
-tara-
xx
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