• Koalas and kangaroos both live in Australia.
• Koalas and kangaroos start with the letter K.
• Koalas and kangaroos can have more than one baby but generally only have one a season.
• A koala baby is called a joey. A kangaroo baby is called a joey.
• Koalas and kangaroos are marsupials.
• Koalas and kangaroos both eat leaves.
• Koalas and kangaroos both have pouches.
• Koala and kangaroo parents both digest the food before feeding it to their young.
• Neither koalas nor kangaroos mate for life.

Koala Bear, originally uploaded by cewoldt.

BULLDOZERS rolled in to some of the last remaining koala habitats on the South Coast yesterday, marking the start of what police fear could be a divisive logging operation.

After reading yesterday that we made up some ground in this fight for suitable habitat areas with the 1200 fodder tree sanctuary it is planning, I am discouraged to read this travesty of environmental justice. This must be stopped or the koala will lose its habitat in the South Coast for good. Sheesh! One step forward, two steps back.

Read more of this article here.

The road toll has been so extensive a nationwide awareness program has been created to educate drivers to be alert for koalas crossing roads at night. Koala friendly road signs are displayed throughout the country much to the delight of tourists who do not realize that they are there to warn them of the danger of driving over the little creatures.

The distinctive deep grunts and belows of the male Koalas sound in Australian forests in spring, but researchers still don’t understand what they mean.

Noises from koalas on St Bees Island off the coast of Mackay, in central Queensland, are now being relayed to a Brisbane laboratory via mobile phone technology.

University of Queensland koala researcher Dr Bill Ellis said the information was fed into an acoustic database, and Queensland University of Technology (QUT) researchers were developing software to recognise koala calls automatically.

“We are studying whether males are talking to other males, or to females, and how vocalisations might stimulate breeding behaviour in female koalas,” Dr Ellis said.

QUT Professor Richard Mason said the technology, used at Brisbane Airport to research bird calls, was a good way for Dr Ellis to eavesdrop on the marsupials without disturbing them.

Prof Mason said microphones connected to the phones monitored the island’s acoustic environment for two minutes every half hour.

“The sensors are remote controlled, so that if we want to change the recording schedule in response to data on when the calls are most prevalent, for example, we can,” he said.

The team is excited about the data it has collected so far, as well as the prospect of adapting the technology to other eco systems.

Source: APP

As shown by Henneberg & als from the Department of Anatomical Sciences, University of Adelaide, koalas have very human-like fingerprints. The main difference is that the entire human palm and fingers are covered with ridges while the koala only has ridges on its fingertips and some areas of the palm.

These similarities between Koalas and Humans is an example of coincidental evolution.

Sources:
Fingerprint homoplasy: koalas and humans – http://naturalscience.com/ns/articles/01-04/ns_hll.html

• In the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Aborigines called Koalas by the word Cullawines
• Near Sydney, Aborigines called Koalas by the word Koolahs
• In the Murray Region, Aborigines called Koalas by the word Karbors
• Other Aboriginal names for Koalas include: Bangaroos, Koolewongs, Narnagoons and Colos

So how does this type of pouch benefit the koala?

Baby koalas, also known as joeys, must eat Pap, a special blend of their mother’s feces. The practice of eating feces is called coprophagy. While this may sound disgusting to you and I, it is vital for the joeys to be introduced to the micro-organisms needed to digest the typically toxic eucalyptus leaves. The micro-organisms come directly from their mother’s digestive system via the pap. The rear-oriented pouch opening facilitates the necessary practice of coprophagy and thusly, serves the koala’s needs for survival.

The interesting point to investigate is where this pouch evolved from and where does this point for the evolutionary history of the koala?

If you have more information on this than we do, we’d love to read about it and discuss it with you.

Sources:
http://www.thekoala.com/koala/
http://darwinstories.blogspot.com/2008/05/how-koala-got-it-backwards.html

You can help save the koala by supporting the Australian Koala Foundation. You can do this by donating money, buying products or fund raising. Come on, you know you want to help these little cute critters. Who better to help? =)

If you raise $200 or more for the AKF, you will earn your very own Foster Koala for a year! How cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuteeee!!!! Don’t you want to have a foster Koala for an entire year, all for helping save these adorable koalas? =)

Click here for more information.