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Koala 40D0016989

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Description

Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus)
At the Riverside Zoo in Columbia, South Carolina.

The Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) is a thickset arboreal marsupial herbivore native to Australia, and the only extant representative of the Family Phascolarctidae. The Koala is not found in Tasmania or Western Australia.

The word koala comes from Dharuk "gula". Although the vowel "u" was originally written in the Latin alphabet as "oo", it was changed to "oa" possibly due to an error. The word is erroneously said to mean "doesn't drink".

The Koala is broadly similar in appearance to the wombat (their closest living relatives), but has a thicker coat, much larger ears and longer limbs. The Koala has large, sharp claws to assist with climbing tree trunks. Weight varies from about 14 kg (31 lb) for a large southern male, to about 5 kg (11 lb) for a small northern female. The Koala's five fingers are arranged with opposable thumbs, providing better gripping ability. The first two fingers are positioned in apposition on the front paws, and the first three fingers for the hind paws. The Koala is one of the few mammals (other than primates) that has fingerprints. Koala fingerprints are similar to human fingerprints; even with an electron microscope, it can be quite difficult to distinguish between the two.

The brain in the ancestors of the modern Koala once filled the whole cranial cavity, but has become drastically reduced in the present species, a degeneration scientists suspects is an adaptation to a diet low in energy. One of the smallest in marsupials with no more than 0.2% of its body weight, about 40% of the cranial cavity is filled with cerebrospinal fluid, while the brain's two cerebral hemispheres are like a pair of shrivelled walnut halves on top of the brain stem, in contact neither with each other nor the bones of the skull. It is the only animal on Earth with such a strangely reduced brain.

The Koala lives almost entirely on eucalypt leaves. This is likely to be an evolutionary adaptation that takes advantage of an otherwise unfilled ecological niche, since eucalypt leaves are low in protein, high in indigestible substances, and contain phenolic and terpene compounds that are toxic to most species.

More info: [link]

Featured by Rivka :iconhermione75: here: [link] .
Image size
3030x3939px 5.68 MB
Make
Canon
Model
Canon EOS 40D
Shutter Speed
1/197 second
Aperture
F/9.0
Focal Length
105 mm
ISO Speed
200
Date Taken
Jul 19, 2008, 10:34:37 AM
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Comments17
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Hermione75's avatar
I hope you don't mind my presumption, I use this pic,
[link]
if you mind:
a. I apologize
b. will remove the pic as soon as I can point and click (i.e. this is a temp posting pending your approval(.
(I am also sorry if I asked you before and forgot about it….)
c. I will not turn this into a print unless you ask me to.