Animal · Australia
Koala
Phascolarctos cinereus — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The koala is a tree-dwelling Australian marsupial that eats almost nothing but eucalyptus leaves. Despite its nickname, it is not a bear at all but carries its young in a pouch.
Picture credit: Calistemon (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Calistemon (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Gzen92 (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the koala live?
Home: Eucalyptus forests of eastern Australia.
In the wild you find it in: Australia.
Conservation status from the IUCN: vulnerable.
The short profile
Fully grown it measures up to 85 cm long. It weighs about 9 kilograms. On the menu: plants.
The story behind it
Koalas sleep or rest for up to 20 hours a day, because eucalyptus leaves are so low in energy and slightly toxic that digesting them takes a huge amount of effort. A special long gut called the caecum helps break down the tough leaves and filter out poisons that would harm other animals. Koala fingerprints are so similar to human fingerprints that even experts sometimes struggle to tell them apart under a microscope. Fires, habitat clearing for towns and farms, and disease have caused koala numbers to drop sharply in parts of Australia, so the species is now considered vulnerable overall.
Find it on the globe
Koala is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
Is a koala a bear?
No, a koala is not a bear at all; it is a marsupial, meaning it carries and raises its baby in a pouch, much like a kangaroo. It only earned the nickname 'koala bear' because of its round, cuddly shape.
Why do koalas sleep so much?
Koalas sleep up to 20 hours a day because their diet of eucalyptus leaves gives very little energy and takes a long time to digest. Sleeping helps them save energy while their bodies slowly process the tough, low-nutrient leaves.
Are koalas endangered?
Koalas are classed as vulnerable, with numbers falling sharply in parts of Australia due to bushfires, habitat clearing and disease. Some regional populations have declined so much they are protected even more strictly under local law.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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