Category : Articles

Sub Category : Science and Technology

Everybody knows about this furry little pal known as koala, right?


But dont be fooled, its a miracle this species is still alive. Because all odds are against their survival.


Why?


There's a lot of reasons.




FOOD SOURCE:


The main food source of a koala is eucalyptus leaves. But i bet you this mammal couldn't have chosen a worse food source.


Eucalyptus us poisonous in large amounts to just about every animal. They also have a very aggressive oil and that makes them even harder to eat. ALSO, they have a natural sedative effect, and are very energy intensive to eat.


No animal in its right mind would eat this unless it absolutely had to, right? 


Wrong.


Koala IS the animal that it eats eucalyptus leaves almost exclusively. 
As a matter of fact, koalas have used basically all of their evolutionary "points" into adapting to eat this God awful food source.




BRAIN AND INTELLIGENCE:


The wrinkles and complexities of a brain help it to do the thinking and whatnot. However, a koala' brain is real smooth. Which means, koalas are as dumb as they are adorable. 


Scientists have brainscanned them to find out that they have almost no significant brain activity. Not only this but if you look up videos you'll find many examples of koalas trying to climb paintings of trees. Scientists tried to feed some koalas eucalyptus leaves on a tray and it wouldnt eat them and the only reason they could find is that they were so dumb it didnt recognize it as food since it wasnt on a branch.




SLEEP SCHEDULE:


Koalas sleep 16 to 18 hours a day. When koalas are awake they have to eat almost constantly because of their food source which is of no real nutritional value.


They chose eucalyptus as their food source, and since it gives so little energy and takes so much to digest, they basically have to be eating it if awake, or sleeping just to process it.




CHLAMYDIA:


Chlamydia runs rampant in the koala community. According to BBC "in some parts of australia, koala infection rates are as high as 90%"


Almost all of these little creatures have chlamydia!


A black patch on their bodies is a symptom of chlamydia




CONCLUSION:


Koalas are considered a vulnerable species, and they do need help to get over their ways.


The Australian koala foundation helps koalas and is pushing for legislations to protect them and their habitats for which there is currently no formal protection.




We should probably save them.