Koala

Fun Facts for Kids

• These animals spend most of the day (up to 18 hours) sleeping.
• The brain of koala is less than 0.2% out of the animal's body weight. This, combined with their nutrient-poor diet, is the reason of koalas' sedentary lifestyle.
• Their name, "koala", comes from Aborigine language and means "no water". The animals are so called because of rarely drinking water and attaining required moisture from eucalyptus leaves. However, when the temperatures increase, koalas sometimes lose a large amount of water, becoming dehydrated.
• A koala consumes about 1 kilogram of leaves per day on average, which is a huge amount for the body size of the animal. They also tend to use their cheek pouches as stocks, where they store snacks of leaves.
• Koalas feed upon leaves only during a certain stage of growth. They consume 12 species of eucalyptus tree out of more than 100 species, found throughout Australia.
• Not only koalas are excellent climbers, but they are also good swimmers, known to cross rivers, escaping from heavy flooding in their home range.
• Newborn babies of this species are hairless, blind and as small as a broad bean.
• The mother and her young are in very close bonds; the female is happy to carry the joey with her everywhere, until the baby grows old, becoming independent.
• Their scientific name is "Phascolarctoscinereus”, where a Greek word "phaskolos" means "pouch", arktos means "bear" and the Latin word "cinereus" means "ash-colored".