58 Fun Facts About Koala

Which koala feature so closely matches ours that experts can struggle to tell them apart under a microscope?

Fingerprints arose separately in koalas and in primates, whose ancestors parted at least 70 million years ago; the Adelaide team that found them proposed they are an aid to grasping, and most of the koala's close relatives have none.

Which animals are the koala's closest living relatives?

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

Why do koalas sleep up to 20 hours a day?

Saving energy: eucalyptus leaves hold so few calories that a koala can afford to do little else, and the old tale that the leaves leave it drunk is a myth.

The name koala is popularly said to come from an Aboriginal word meaning what?

No drink is the popular gloss, since koalas get most of their moisture from leaves, but dictionaries trace the word only to gula, the animal's own name in the Dharug language, and koalas do drink in a drought.

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

Bear was a mistake that stuck: settlers took the stout, round-eared climber for a kind of bear and called it the 'native bear', and the scientific name simply put their error into Greek.

What do leaf-eating koalas sometimes climb down to eat?

Soil. A koala now and then climbs down to eat a little dirt or gravel, which is thought to aid its digestion or to supply minerals its leaves lack.

In which four Australian states are wild koalas found?

Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia. Hunting had all but wiped out South Australia's koalas by the 1920s, and most living there now descend from small groups introduced afterwards.

Southern koalas grow about twice as heavy as Queensland's, a difference thought to be an adaptation to what?

Colder winters. Extra bulk and a thicker, shaggier coat keep out the cold: Victoria's koalas top 10 kg, while North Queensland's weigh about half as much.

Which of a koala's organs is strikingly small for an animal of its size?

Brain. It is unusually small for a mammal of the koala's size, and researchers suspect a bigger one would be too costly to fuel on a diet of gum leaves.

What have zoologists reported a koala does when gum leaves are served loose on a flat surface?

Fails to eat them. Biologist Hugh Tyndale-Biscoe wrote that a koala feeds by drawing a branch to its mouth, and cannot respond when the same leaves arrive loose.

What helps a koala's front paws grip branches so firmly?

Two thumbs. The first two digits of each front paw oppose the other three, so a branch is gripped evenly from both sides, and each hind foot adds a clawless, thumb-like big toe.

What unusual shape are the pupils of a koala's eyes?

Vertical slits. Its ears are specialised too: an unusually large middle ear helps a koala catch the low bellows of other koalas across the forest.

Koalas ferment gum leaves in the hindgut, not the stomach, a digestive plan shared with which animal?

Horses. Cows, deer and goats ferment food in a chambered stomach; koalas and horses do it further along, the koala in a two-metre pouch called the caecum where bacteria break down the fibre.

Which organ does a koala rely on to neutralise the poisons in eucalyptus leaves?

The liver. It makes enzymes called cytochrome P450 that break down the oils and phenols in gum leaves, poisons that put almost every other mammal off eating them.

A 2014 study revealed why koalas press their bodies against tree trunks: to do what?

Shed body heat. In hot weather the trunks were found to be much cooler than the air, so a koala resting against one can dump heat into the wood and needs far less evaporative cooling.

With hundreds of eucalyptus species to choose from, which sense does a koala mainly use to pick its leaves?

Smell. A koala pulls each branch to its big leathery nose and sniffs before it bites, which lets it reject leaves that carry too much toxin.

When are koalas mostly awake and feeding?

After dark. Koalas are mostly nocturnal, eating in four to six bouts, though they also doze for part of the night and sometimes stir by day.

Which US zoo got its first koalas in 1925, a gift from the children of Sydney?

San Diego Zoo. The pair were named Snugglepot and Cuddlepie after storybook characters, and eucalyptus grows so well in the city's climate that the zoo raises its own leaves for its koalas.

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

On the chest. The gland shows as a bare, stained patch on his pale front, and he rubs it against the trunk as he climbs to tell other koalas the tree is taken.

A male koala's bellow is often compared to which pair of sounds?

A snore and a belch. The snore is the breath in and the belch the breath out, and the low-pitched result carries far through the forest, where females pay more attention to bigger males.

What unusual structure lets koalas produce sounds far deeper than their size should allow?

Extra vocal cords in the soft palate. Described in 2013, these folds let an 8 kg koala bellow about 20 times lower than its size predicts, a pitch more typical of an animal the size of an elephant.

About how long is a koala pregnant before her joey is born?

About 5 weeks. After 33 to 35 days the joey arrives blind, hairless and barely formed, and does nearly all of its growing in the pouch rather than the womb.

About how big is a newborn koala joey?

A jelly bean. About 2 cm long and under a gram, it is born blind and hairless, yet its forelimbs are strong enough to haul it through its mother's fur to the pouch.

What stops a koala joey from falling out of its mother's pouch as she climbs?

A ring of muscle. It draws the opening shut like a drawstring bag, a useful safeguard because, unlike many pouches, a koala's does not open upward.

After outgrowing the pouch, how does a young koala travel with its mother?

Riding on her back. After six or seven months in the pouch the joey climbs aboard and tries its first gum leaves from there, though it stays on her milk until about a year old.

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

A runny faecal 'pap' from her cloaca. It is a soft, special form of her droppings, and eating it for a few weeks passes on the gut microbes a joey needs before it can digest gum leaves.

A young koala usually stays with its mother until what happens?

Her next baby arrives. A young koala stays close until its mother's following joey comes along, then sets off to find a home range of its own; if she skips a year, it stays longer.

A wild koala that reaches old age often dies because which part of its body wears out?

Its teeth. From about age six the molars that grind gum leaves start to wear smooth, and an old koala that can no longer chew its food properly slowly starves.

Steve Irwin opened Australia Zoo's wildlife hospital, which treats hundreds of koalas, in memory of which relative?

His mother. Lyn Irwin was a pioneer of wildlife care, and in her memory Steve and Terri turned an avocado packing shed into the hospital in 2004; by 2020 it had treated 90,000 animals.

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

AIDS. The virus can wear down a koala's immune defences in much the same way, and it seems to have spread from north to south: only southern populations still include virus-free animals.

On the ground, koalas are killed mainly by cars and by which animal?

Dogs. The Australian Koala Foundation estimates that dogs and cars together kill about 4,000 koalas a year, a toll it puts down to the loss of their habitat.

In 2022 koalas were listed as endangered in Queensland, New South Wales and the territory around which city?

Canberra. The Australian Capital Territory's koalas, like those of the two states, had gained national protection only ten years earlier, and continued decline then saw their listing raised to endangered.

Which US president, a former mining engineer on Australia's goldfields, banned imports of koala skins?

Herbert Hoover. Koala pelts had been reaching American furriers under false labels, and his ban closed that market; millions of koalas had been shot for the trade since the late 1800s.

In Qantas's long-running American TV adverts, what did the airline's koala complain about?

Too many tourists. The koala, voiced by comedian Howard Morris, grumbled that the airline kept bringing visitors to Australia, and ended each advert with 'I hate Qantas'.

A koala looks cuddly, but keepers say its fur feels most like the coat of which animal?

A sheep. The dense coat is coarse and woolly rather than silky, and it earns its keep: it cushions a koala on hard branches and shrugs off wind and rain.

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

The New Holland Sloth. New Holland was an old name for Australia, and Perry was no admirer: he wrote that the animal had 'a clumsy awkward appearance' and was 'void of elegance'.

In the 2016 animated film Sing, which actor voices the koala theatre owner Buster Moon?

Matthew McConaughey. His koala, Buster Moon, stages a singing contest to rescue his struggling theatre, and a typo on the flyers promises a $100,000 prize he does not have.

The first live koala sent to which country was killed when the lid of a washstand fell on it?

Britain. London's Zoological Society had acquired the young female, and after the accident its prosector William Forbes dissected her, describing soft organs that anatomists had seen only in preserved specimens.

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

A kangaroo. In the story the pair are searching for water in a terrible drought when the koala's bad behaviour earns the punishment; another tale blames a fire lit by a jealous lyrebird.

The koala Bunyip Bluegum is the hero of which 1918 Australian children's classic?

The Magic Pudding. Norman Lindsay is said to have written it to win an argument that children would rather read about food than fairies; its pudding, Albert, grows back however much is eaten.

Which mischievous koala did Dorothy Wall create in 1933?

Blinky Bill. He first appeared beside a kookaburra in another writer's 1933 picture book, which Wall illustrated, and she gave him a book of his own the same year.

Paul McCartney's 'Ode to a Koala Bear' was the B-side of which 1983 duet single?

Say Say Say. While they worked together McCartney told Michael Jackson that owning songs was the way to make money; in 1985 Jackson bought the publishing rights to the Beatles' own catalogue.

Which Australian rugby team uses a koala as its icon?

Queensland Reds. The koala has been Queensland's official animal emblem since 1971, chosen after a newspaper poll showed strong public support, and it sits on the rugby side's crest.

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

The G20 summit in Brisbane. Putin and Obama were each photographed holding a koala, and the phrase echoes China's panda diplomacy: Australia also sends koalas to zoos abroad as a goodwill gesture.

Australians joke that dabbing what behind the ears wards off the fictional drop bear?

Vegemite. The drop bear is a hoax told to visitors, a fierce cousin of the koala said to fall on people from the trees, and tellers add mock advice such as wearing forks in the hair.

Sam the koala, filmed drinking from a firefighter's bottle, became a symbol of hope after which 2009 disaster?

The Black Saturday bushfires. The clip was actually shot in the week before, during back-burning, but it went round the world as Australia counted the cost of the fires.

Opened in 1927, which Queensland attraction is the world's oldest koala sanctuary?

Lone Pine. Claude Reid opened it as a refuge while koalas were still being killed for their fur, and its first residents included a pair called Jack and Jill.

A blue koala named Borobi was the mascot of which 2018 sporting event in Queensland?

The Commonwealth Games. Borobi's design, by a Queensland schoolteacher, was picked from about 4,000 competition entries, and he made his entrance by helicopter on a Gold Coast beach.

A 2019 survey found the koalas of one large southern island free of which disease, widespread on the mainland?

Chlamydia. None of the 170 island koalas tested carried it, and the population, founded by a few animals moved there in the 1920s, may be the last large infection-free one: a possible safeguard for the species.

In the 2010s the IUCN Red List moved the koala from Least Concern to which category?

Vulnerable. The IUCN also names the koala among ten species most exposed to climate change, because extra carbon dioxide thins the nutrients in gum leaves while drought and fire strip its forests.

Two fused toes on each hind foot give a koala a built-in tool for doing what?

Grooming its fur. The second and third toes share one sheath of skin but keep separate claws, making a two-pronged comb that also rakes out ticks.

Koala Kong, a hulking koala, is a boss in the first game of which PlayStation series?

Crash Bandicoot. Koala Kong is the third boss of the 1996 original, a koala built like King Kong who hurls boulders at the hero.

Besides dingoes and big owls, which native hunter is known to take koalas?

Large pythons. Eagles and goannas take the odd koala too, mostly youngsters that stray from their mothers; a healthy adult up a tree has few natural enemies.

Which Sydney institution co-led the koala genome project?

The Australian Museum. The genome revealed extra copies of genes for breaking down plant toxins, a clue to how koalas thrive on leaves that would poison most other animals.

Kwicky Koala, a 1981 cartoon hero, came from which animation studio?

Hanna-Barbera. Tex Avery, the creator of Droopy, developed the cartoon there and died in 1980 while it was in production; its mild-mannered koala always gives a pursuing wolf the slip.

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

Rainforests. Modern koalas avoid them: as Australia dried out, rainforest gave way to eucalypt woodland, and koalas evolved stronger jaws to cope with the tougher leaves.

Where can a koala stash leaves it has bitten off but is not ready to chew?

In its cheeks. A koala has cheek pouches like a hamster's, and sound recordings suggest it also brings swallowed leaves back up to chew a second time.

Which English bird artist illustrated and described the koala in his book The Mammals of Australia?

John Gould. Best known for his bird books and for identifying Darwin's Galapagos finches, he moved to Australia in 1838 to collect, and later filled three volumes with its mammals.