Koalas and wombats

Australia is home to many unique and wonderful creatures and I would love to share with you a little information about two of our favourites. The wombat and the koala. These two very different animals are distant relatives, they are marsupials, which means they raise their young in a pouch but the distinction that links them is that the pouch faces backwards. The pouch of most other marsupials faces forwards.

The Koala has long been known as the "koala bear" but it is not a bear nor is it related to a bear. The koala has the tiniest baby imaginable, it is barely more than a tiny one centimetre long embryo but it manages instinctively to slither into the pouch and latch on to one of the two teats inside. It stays in the pouch for about five months before it ventures out. For the next few months it will cling to the mothers back as she makes her way through the tree she is feeding on until, at 12 months, it is capable of self sufficiency and will leave.

The koala has a boring diet. It eats only eucalyptus leaves (the new leaves) and usually will only eat the leaves from about six varieties of eucalyptus in its location. It does not need to drink - getting enough moisture from the fresh leaves. During extreme heat or in drought the koala will seek out water for a drink but normally it stays in the trees.

The biggest enemy of the koala is its most ardent fan - us! It is because of our need to build houses that the habitat of the koala has been decimated. We have chosen to live in the same area that they chose and with fewer trees and therefore less food, the koalas are no longer in the numbers they enjoyed before Captain Cook told the world about Australia and white habitation made a difference.

The wombat is a ground hugging animal that I find very appealing. They can grow to about a metre in length and are usually quite solitary. They too have a rear facing pouch and the young have a similar pattern of development to the koala, staying in the pouch for almost six months but they trot alongside their mother once they leave the pouch and they look very cute!

The incisor teeth of the wombat, top and bottom, keep growing all of their lives so even when a wombat is quite old it is still able to grind the tough stems and roots that it eats.

Fossil evidence tells us that there was once a wombat the size of a hippopotamus in the time of Tyrannosaurus Rex! I am glad they shrank!

Wombats are not popular with farmers - when they come across a fence they barge right through it opening up a hole through which unwelcome pests can penetrate - such as dingos, foxes and rabbits. They are furry bulldozers!

There are a few different sorts of Wombat and all have slight behavioural and subtle physical differences but to me they all look the same!

AJ