10 fun facts about koalas
For six months, four Koalas from Australia will be making the Singapore Zoo their home.
Named Chan, Idalia, Paddle and Pellita, the koalas are a “gift” from Australia to mark Singapore’s 50 years of independence this year and 50 years of diplomatic ties between the two countries.
You can find them at the zoo’s special koala enclosure, which Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and his Australian counterpart, Julie Bishop, opened to the public on Wednesday, 20 May.
Here are some fun facts about the animals.
1 They’re not bears. They are marsupials (pouched animals like kangaroos).
2. They really like eating leaves from the Eucalypt genus of trees. Qantas will be flying in the leaves for the four koalas twice a week.
3. They aren’t big drinkers. They can survive on sufficient water by licking dew from leaves.
4. They are endemic to Australia, specifically the eucalypt forests of eastern Australia.
5. Due to their low-calories diet, they sleep a lot, between 18 to 22 hours a day. In the evening, they look for food.
6. They are well suited to sit on trees, as they have extra thick fur on their bottoms, a cartilaginous pad at the base of their spines and a curved skeletal structure.
7. About 80 per cent of koalas have the venereal disease of chlamydia. A side effect is it makes them incontinent, and the leaking urine can make them pretty stinky.
8. Koalas live for 10 years on average, though they can live longer than that. Female koalas usually produce one koala a year.
9. Koalas aren’t an endangered species, but the Australian government declared them “vulnerable” in 2012. There are 43,000 to 80,000 koalas left in the wild, the Australian Koala Foundation estimates.
10. They are among a few animals that are like humans in that they have fingerprints.
Photos are provided by Wildlife Reserves Singapore.
