Celebrated on September 27th
Did you know: Each Koala’s ‘home' is made up of several trees called HOME TREES. They visit these same trees regularly. The area covered by these trees is called the Koala’s HOME RANGE. Each Koala has its own home range, which overlaps those of other Koalas. Unless breeding, they don’t normally visit another Koalas home trees. The size of each home range depends upon a range of factors including the quality of the habitat and the sex, age and social position in the population of the Koala.
Source: Australia Koala FoundationDid you know: Koalas are marsupials, meaning that they give birth to immature young that develop further in their mother’s pouch. A newborn koala is only the size of a broad bean, blind and hairless. It then spends its first six months inside its mother’s pouch. For the next two or three months it clings to its mother’s fur during the day, returning to the safety of her pouch at night. The koala mother and her young enjoy a very close relationship. She happily carries her offspring around constantly until it is old enough to be independent.
Source: One Kind PlanetDid you know: Koalas survive on a diet of eucalyptus leaves and can eat up to a kilogram a day! Pretty impressive, considering eucalyptus is poisonous to most animals.Their special fibre digesting organ, called a caecum, helps to detoxify the chemicals in the leaves. However, they can be quite picky eaters, eating less than 50 of over 700 eucalypt species. Even then, they’ll often choose leaves at the top of the tallest trees that contain more liquid and nutrients – only the best for Australia’s koalas!
Source: WWF