60 Fun Facts About Koala

What kind of animal is a koala?

'Koala bear' is a misnomer: it is a pouched mammal whose closest living relatives are wombats.

Which animals are the koala's closest living relatives?

Both belong to the suborder Vombatiformes; kangaroos and possums are in a sister group.

Roughly how many hours a day does a koala sleep?

The eucalyptus diet is so poor in energy that sleeping is the only way to balance the books.

The word 'koala' comes from the Dharug word 'gula', meaning what?

Koalas rarely need to drink because they get most of their moisture from leaves.

The koala's genus name Phascolarctos combines the Greek words for 'pouch' and what?

So even the scientists called it a pouched bear; the species name cinereus is Latin for 'ash-coloured'.

What is the koala's species name, Latin for 'ash-coloured'?

The full binomial is Phascolarctos cinereus, formally fixed after a naming tangle in the 1810s.

In which four Australian states are wild koalas found?

They are not native to South Australia at all; koalas were shipped there from French Island in Victoria around 1920.

How much heavier are koalas from Victoria than koalas from Queensland?

Southern koalas are bigger, shaggier and browner; northern ones are smaller and silver-grey.

Compared with a typical diprotodont, the koala's brain is about how much smaller?

It weighs about 19 g, does not fill the skull and floats in cerebrospinal fluid, which may cushion it in a fall.

What will a koala refuse to eat if it is placed on a flat surface?

Its small brain limits complex behaviour: food that does not match its normal routine of pulling leaves off branches simply does not register as food.

How many opposable digits does a koala have on each front paw?

The first and second digits oppose the other three, giving it a double-thumbed grip on small branches.

The koala's eyes are unusual among marsupials because their pupils are what shape?

It is thought to be an adaptation to living on a vertical plane, up trees.

Roughly how long is a koala's caecum, the fermenting chamber that lets it digest eucalyptus?

It is possibly the largest caecum for any animal of the koala's size, and food can sit in the gut for 100 hours.

Which liver enzyme family lets koalas neutralise the poisons in eucalyptus leaves?

The toxins are phenolic compounds and terpenes that deter almost every other mammal from eating the leaves.

The koala's metabolic rate is roughly what fraction of a typical mammal's?

That low rate is why it can survive on a diet with so few calories.

Of the 600-plus eucalyptus species available, koalas show a strong preference for roughly how many?

Three species alone, including the forest red gum, make up more than 20% of their diet on average.

Roughly how much leaf does a koala eat each day?

That is spread over four to six feeding sessions, mostly at night.

Research found koalas spend less than what share of their day on the ground?

They descend only two or three times a night, for a total of about ten minutes, usually to move to another tree.

How much time does a koala spend on social behaviour each day?

They are asocial: only mothers form bonds, and only with their dependent joeys.

Male koalas mark their trees using scent glands located where on their bodies?

The gland shows as a bald patch, and its secretions contain about 40 different compounds.

How is the male koala's bellow described?

Its low frequency travels far through the forest, and females pay more attention to bellows from larger males.

What unusual structure lets koalas produce sounds far deeper than an animal their size should manage?

The larynx also sits unusually low in the vocal tract and can be pulled down even further.

How long is a koala's gestation?

The newborn joey weighs no more than half a gram and must crawl into the pouch to finish developing.

Newborn koala joeys weigh no more than how much?

Despite that, they can already breathe, defecate and urinate, and their forelimbs are developed enough to climb.

What is unusual about the female koala's pouch compared with other marsupials?

The pouch opening is held shut by a sphincter muscle to keep the joey from falling out.

Roughly how long does a joey live in its mother's pouch before fully emerging?

It then rides on her back, learning to climb, and is not fully weaned until about a year old.

What does a mother koala feed her joey to prepare its gut for eucalyptus?

The pap comes from her caecum, is runnier than normal droppings and seeds the joey's gut with the microbes it will need.

Unlike other marsupials, how does koala milk change as the joey grows?

The mother lactates for as long as a year to compensate for her own low energy production.

How long do koalas typically live in the wild?

Many die of starvation once their molars wear flat around age six onward and they can no longer grind leaves.

Which bacterial disease is epidemic among mainland koalas, causing eye and reproductive-tract infections?

Some island populations are free of it, and vaccination trials were under way as of 2024.

The koala retrovirus (KoRV) can cause a syndrome compared with which human disease?

Its spread appears to have run north to south, since only southern populations still contain virus-free animals.

Together, cars and dogs kill about how many koalas a year?

That accounts for around two thirds of all koala deaths.

In 2022 the koala was listed as endangered in Queensland, NSW and which other jurisdiction?

Meanwhile parts of Victoria and South Australia have the opposite problem: koalas so numerous they are over-grazing their trees.

Between 1888 and 1927 roughly how many koalas were hunted for their pelts?

The furs became rugs, coat linings and muffs; Australia exported as many as two million pelts in 1924 alone.

Australia's Threatened Species Scientific Committee put the 2021 koala population at roughly what?

That was down from 185,000 two decades earlier, and from an estimated 8 to 10 million at the start of the 20th century.

In which year did a European first record an encounter with a koala?

John Price, servant of Governor John Hunter, met a 'cullawine' in the Blue Mountains on 26 January 1798.

George Perry, who published the first image of a koala in 1810, called it what?

He was not a fan, describing it as torpid, senseless and 'void of elegance'.

Robert Brown wrote the first scientific description of the koala in 1803. How long did it stay unpublished?

His notes sat in the British Museum unidentified until 1994; Ferdinand Bauer's koala watercolours waited until 1989.

Britain's first living koala, received in 1881, died how?

The Zoological Society's William Forbes dissected it and described organs no one had seen in a fresh specimen.

In one Aboriginal tale, which animal cuts off the koala's tail as punishment for uncouth behaviour?

How the koala lost its tail is the subject of many Dreamtime stories; another says the koala rowed the first people to Australia.

Norman Lindsay's koala character Bunyip Bluegum appears in which 1918 book?

Lindsay had been drawing anthropomorphic koalas for The Bulletin since 1904.

Who created Blinky Bill, the best-known fictional koala, in 1933?

Blinky first appeared alongside a kookaburra in a picture book Wall illustrated, then got his own series.

'Ode to a Koala Bear' is the B-side of which 1983 duet single?

McCartney's koala tribute is one of the odder footnotes to a chart-topping single.

Which Australian rugby team uses a koala as its icon?

Dadswells Bridge in Victoria goes further, with a whole tourist complex shaped like a giant koala.

The term 'koala diplomacy' was coined after world leaders cuddled koalas at which 2014 event?

Putin and Obama were both photographed holding koalas, and the phrase became Oxford's Word of the Month in December 2016.

The 'drop bear' of Australian folklore is a fictional version of the koala that does what?

It is a hoax told to scare tourists, though some note its resemblance to Thylacoleo, the real marsupial lion.

Sam the koala was filmed drinking from a firefighter's bottle during which 2009 disaster?

The phone video drew over 1.4 million YouTube views and Sam became a symbol of hope, though she died later that year.

Founded in Brisbane in 1927, which is the world's oldest and largest refuge of its kind for koalas?

It opened when koalas were still being shot for fur, starting with just two animals named Jack and Jill.

In which year did the koala first appear on an Australian postage stamp?

By then its reputation had flipped from 'sloth-like' pest to national mascot.

The koalas of one South Australian island, 48,000 strong before the 2020 fires, are notably free of what?

Their isolation from mainland colonies protected them, though the 2020 bushfires slashed their numbers.

The koala's IUCN status was raised from Least Concern to what in 2014?

A 2017 WWF report found a 53% decline per generation in Queensland and 26% in New South Wales.

Which two digits on a koala's hind paw are fused together, forming a grooming comb?

The fused toes still have separate claws, a trait typical of the Diprotodontia.

Koalas were introduced to Western Australia in 1938; by 2022 that population had shrunk to how many?

Fossils show koalas once ranged naturally into south-western WA before hunting and climate change wiped them out there.

Which of these is named as a natural predator that may take koalas?

Dingos and some birds of prey are the only other predators listed; disease is a far bigger threat.

How many koala subspecies have been described?

They are the Queensland, New South Wales and Victorian koalas, though genetic studies question whether they are truly distinct.

In which year did Australian scientists announce they had fully sequenced the koala genome?

The work came from the Australian Museum and Queensland University of Technology.

A 2026 genome study dated the koala's severe genetic bottleneck to roughly how long ago?

That predates humans in Australia, so the species' low genetic diversity is not a recent, man-made problem.

During the Oligocene and Miocene, where did ancestral koalas live?

They also had broader diets than today's eucalyptus specialist; some extinct species were only half its size.

How much can an adult koala weigh?

Body length runs 60–85 cm, with the southern animals much bulkier than those in Queensland.

Which French zoologist coined the genus name Phascolarctos in 1816?

German zoologist Georg Goldfuss supplied the species name three years later, as Lipurus cinereus.