Koalas, mother and baby

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cr_wildlife

cr_wildlife

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On our most recent trip to Australia, we were quite fortunate to find a small group of Koalas making their homes amongst a quite small group of shortish eucalyptus trees. Amongst these marsupials, we encountered a mother Koala with a baby old enough to have left the pouch. The baby was holding on its mom's underside and peaked around the trunk of the eucalypt to take a look at us. As Steve has been known to say, "There is no substitute for cute!"
Like most marsupials, baby Koalas are born extremely small and underdeveloped. At birth, a Koala baby weighs just 0.5 grams! The baby is able to climb into its mother's pouch right after birth, where it latches on to a teat and remains in the pouch until 6 to 7 months old, at which time it emerges from the pouch. Thus, the baby in this photo is probably about 8 months old.
While Koalas have gotten a lot of publicity lately related to loss of habitat from the recent widespread wildfires in Australia, the amount of their habitat loss due to fires was actually small. Of far more concern to these marsupials is the loss of habitat due to logging of eucalyptus trees in their overall range. Koalas feed almost exclusively on eucalyptus leaves and prefer to spend their time high up in tall eucalyptus trees.

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Amazing! They are normally too high up, but you got one low enough for a photo. They are normally asleep (I think up to 20 hours a day), but you got one awake. And they normally are without a baby or it is undeveloped in the pouch, but you got one old enough to be looking at you. Simply amazing.
 
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