Koalas continue to be most abundant on the central and north coast of NSW and the south east corner of Queensland.Īnimals vary in size and colour depending on their location. Koalas need a lot of space and a lot of trees – about 100 each. Thanks to reintroductions, Koalas are still distributed over much of their former range, but numbers have been drastically reduced and populations are becoming fragmented by the reduction in continuous habitat. Koalas can be found in Eastern Australia – through much of Queensland (from the Atherton Tablelands west of Cairns moving south), NSW, Victoria and a small section of South Australia. Older animals may only reproduce every two or three years. Younger females will usually birth a joey each year. Before it can eat gum leaves, which are toxic for most mammals, joeys feed for a few weeks on their mother’s droppings, which gives them access to micro-organisms from her intestine that are needed to digest the leaves.Īt around 7 months they will start climbing on their mothers’ backs and will be independent by their first birthday. There it will stay attached for 13 weeks and won’t open its eyes until week 22. It will crawl to its mother’s teat, relying on its strong arms and sense of smell and touch. A joey the size of a kidney bean will be born 35 days after mating. Koalas are seasonal breeders, mating in spring through to early autumn. This is the sound males use to call out to females when they’re ready to breed. Koalas communicate with a range of sounds – the most surprising is a loud belch or bellow. Mature males have a dark mark in the middle of their chests, which are scent glands that they rub on trees to mark their territories. Koalas are not social animals – in fact they’re territorial and adults will generally only tolerate each other when breeding. Each adult has several home trees in its range, which will overlap with those of other Koalas. So they need to eat a lot of leaves – adults will put away around 500g to 1kg of leaves each night !įor this reason they need to move around a number of trees. Koalas have fantastic hearing and an even better sense of smell, which is how they choose the best leaves to eat.ĭespite their incredible digestive system, they can still only absorb about 25% of the nutrients from the leaves, and the rest is excreted as undigested fibre. Since different eucalypts grow in different parts of Australia, a Koala’s exact diet depends on where it lives. Often they’ll choose to only browse their favourite species or limit themselves to two or three, and they prefer new growth on the tips of branches, which have the softest and juiciest leaves. There are more than 700 species of eucalypts and Koalas are quite fussy eaters – only around 50 are suitable and around a dozen make up their staple diet. They get all the moisture they need from gum leaves and only need water in times of drought (when leaves dry out). Mostly active at night, with their sharp claws and opposable digits, Koalas are most at home high in the tree canopy and come down to ground only to move trees or to another habitat patch. Weighing 4kg to 15kg, Koalas are among the largest tree-dwelling marsupials and males are up to 50% bigger than females. Perched high in gum trees, with their stocky, tailless body, large heads and fluffy ears, Koalas live almost entirely on eucalyptus leaves, which are tough to digest.Īs a result they’ve developed a very slow metabolism to save energy – in fact they can sleep for up to 20 hours a day ! Koala behaviour

Sadly, their dramatic and continuing decline is perhaps just as symbolic. Koalas are possibly our most iconic native animals instantly recognisable worldwide as a symbol of Australia and found nowhere else.

Koalas predators and threats