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Koalas are fucking horrible animals.
They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal, additionally - their brains are smooth. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons. If you present a koala with leaves plucked from a branch, laid on a flat surface, the koala will not recognise it as food. They are too thick to adapt their feeding behaviour to cope with change. In a room full of potential food, they can literally starve to death.
This is not the token of an animal that is winning at life.
Speaking of stupidity and food, one of the likely reasons for their primitive brains is the fact that additionally to being poisonous, eucalyptus leaves (the only thing they eat) have almost no nutritional value. They can't afford the extra energy to think, they sleep more than 80% of their fucking lives. When they are awake all they do is eat, shit and occasionally scream like fucking satan.
Because eucalyptus leaves hold such little nutritional value, koalas have to ferment the leaves in their guts for days on end. Unlike their brains, they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal.

Koalas
a small overview about the chlamydia
and it isn't even something they causedit was from invasive species.
One brief overview
with some extra info
The reason koalas eat only eucalyptus isn't stupidity. It's niche evolution. They live in a place with high competition for resources. Having specialized digestive tracts and gut flora allows them to have a food source that isn't under competition. this is a benefit, not a failure. They literally eat something that is poisonous to pretty much every other species. That is an incredible evolutionary adaptation.
Their joeys eating pap is not exclusive to koalas either. It's not only found across the world, the exposure to the gut flora of the parent happens with most mammals, if in a less direct manner. You can even find a ton of information about what happens when human gut flora becomes unbalanced, and it isn't very pretty. It's just worse for koalas.
Not every species is a generalist, and we don't want them to be.
a note on why koalas bellow so much
The source may be a crappy blog, but the information in it matches more detailed data from better sources, and keeps it short enough for this.
As with most behaviors in other species, attributing human judgement and definitions tends to be misleading. While koalas are pretty unique in the lack of mating rituals, they're not doing it for human reasons. Nor are attempts to copulate outside of season as common as the pasta makes it seem. Besides, that's something humans actually do share with them besides the presence of fingerprints. It also isn't so rare in animals as to be remarkable. Copulation behaviors are used outside of mating by plenty of species for social reasons. It isn't in koalas, but since it does increase the chances of mating, it isn't a bad adaptation.
And the extra cerebro-spinal fluid isn't a special ed helmet, it's another adaptation found in other tree dwelling species. Why would an arboreal species having adaptations to mitigate risk from falls be a negative?
Yeah, I get it, the pasta is meant for entertainment, but it also spreads half truths, outright incorrect or outdated information, and skips over facts for the entertainment value. Then people read it and spout it out later as fact.
It's just a crappy copy pasta, not anything meant to be taken as truth, but people are more dumb than koalas.
This pasta in particular isn't the worst (the sunfish one takes the prize for being the most full of bull). Nor is it a bad thing to enjoy as entertainment. But for crying out loud people, don't take random, unsourced copy pasta as an educational tool.
Also This comment covers some things I missed
Then there's this one that is even better
- You know Lemmy is getting good when you have comments like this
  Like how the fuck do you know so much about koalas? It’s a rethorical question mostly. Thank you for sharing :)
- also koala have a RETROvirus KORV circulating too, basically some of them might get KIDS eventually and get infections. and it was likely spread from a specific type of simian virus.
- Thanks for correcting the record.
  Sure stupidity exists in the natural world, but adaptation to habitat can also explain a lot of behaviors too.
They are not extinct so I think they are nailing it
- Funny you say that, theyre on their way to extinction
- Its just like pandas, if you can find a niche where there is a ton of low quality food that nobody else wants but you can gobble it down then you win.
!Subscribe
Same with Puffins. Cute little flying penguins that happily catch worms in their beak, only to be robbed in mid-air by hawks and other birds of prey.
How did they survive this long? They're good at breeding, and do well in times of abundance....
You know evolution is more survival than evolution or women wouldn't be bleeding needlessly every month?
oh and they can eat a specific type of eucalyptus, and not just any type like the invasive blue gum. and they wont conceptualize leaves in front of them, if its not on a branch.
also being susceptible to chlamydia, which was theoretically though to have come from farm animals by colonist centuries ago. additionally, they have a retrovirus, called koala retrovrisus(koala HIV) which likely came from a monkey virus(high genetic similarities), they dont know how it came from them.
This pasta aged well.
Relevant: https://youtube.com/shorts/9IZ410VrikQ
Just wait until all plants in Australia die out except for eucalyptus trees and koalas take over the continent

The Mother’s semen?

In the absence of information I'm going to go ahead and suggest that they get the bacteria by scraping their teeth along tree bark until the right bacteria gets picked up

Close! Actually they eat their mother's shit.
- Thank you! Annoyed by the lack of information elsewhere in the thread
- 3 koalas 1 cup
- Eat shit and thrive
- Elephants will eat each other's shit. I've seen an elephant reach onto another's anus and pull out some delicious shit to eat.

Which is why in Australia, when we tell someone to eat shit - it’s actually because we care about their digestive health!

wait until this thread learns where humans get their gut biome

wasn't there something about children born from a C-section having a notably lower amount of gut biome, which kinda proofs that a significant amount of gut biome gets transported through the vaginal channel, or am i misremembering things?
- my understanding is that when you're born it's normal for mom to poop on your head a little bit
- I think I have been subconsciously trying to improve my gut biome as an adult....
- I just heard the exact same thing in a Kurgesgagt video, not sure if its true though. They said c section babies have higher rates of infection and asthma too. I found a Smithsonian article about it if you are interested:
  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/babies-born-c-section-found-have-different-gut-microbes-vaginally-delivered-infants-180973174/
I'm so confused

Butt milk. 🤢

Is it like bunnies and it’s not poop? It’s called cecum if I remember correctly. It just happens to come out the same hole as poop.
- The SciShow video that introduced me to the plight of the Koala called it "pap" which might be distinct from poop but I didn't bother to look into it farther, just kind of assumed it was poop too

💩

And then fall out of a tree and into some hikers.

Have you ever tried earthworm milk?

Queen Amidala suggesting that titty infection is a good thing.

More like green fudge