According to Stephen Jackson, in Koala origins of an icon, the European settlers did not discover the koala for ten years after arriving on the Australian continent! For ten whole years they somehow missed the slow-moving, unobtrusive animals. Was this luck on the part of the animal or are they more intelligent than we give them credit for being? Afterall, look at how well other animals, fauna and native people fared at the hands of European settlers. Once the settlers did discover the koala, they could not decide what sort of animal they were exactly. They wondered if they were monkeys, sloths, bears or even a type of wombat. Many were confused further by miscommunication with the Australian natives. It would be years before they could accurately identify the koala.

Too bad the natives weren’t so lucky to go unnoticed…