Content
- Not just eucalyptus nor any eucalyptus
- Koalas have a special digestive tract.
- Koalas seem lazy due to their feeding.
- A food that puts your survival at risk
- Other Koala Threats
You koalas automatically associate themselves with their food source, which are the eucalyptus leaves. But why does the koala feed on eucalyptus leaves if they are toxic? Can you consume the leaves of any variety of this Australian tree? Do koalas have other possibilities to survive far from eucalyptus forests?
Discover the habits of this marsupial from Australia in relation to koala feeding then in PeritoAnimal and, clarify all these doubts.
Not just eucalyptus nor any eucalyptus
Although most of their food is composed of leaves of some eucalyptus varietieskoalas, strictly herbivores, also feed on plant matter from some concrete trees that grow in their natural habitat, the eastern part of the Australian continent, which is where they still survive in the wild.
Eucalyptus leaves are toxic to most animals. The koala is a special case among vertebrates and therefore has the advantage of not having more competitors for food than its own congeners. Anyway, most eucalyptus varieties are also toxic to these marsupials. Of about 600 eucalyptus varieties, the koalas feed only on 50.
It has been shown that koalas prefer to eat the leaves of the eucalyptus tree varieties that are most abundant in the environment where they were raised.
Koalas have a special digestive tract.
The food specialization of the koala starts in the mouth, with its incisors, the first ones press the leaves and the later ones are used for chewing.
koalas have blind bowel, just like humans and rats. In koalas, the blind intestine is large, and in it, with a single entry and exit zone for food, the half-digested leaves remain for several hours during which they are subjected to the action of a special bacterial flora, which allows the koala use up to 25% of the energy that contain the vegetable fiber from your food.
Koalas seem lazy due to their feeding.
the koalas pass between 16 and 22 hours a day sleeping due to its strictly herbivorous diet and based on very little nutritious vegetable matter, and also hypocaloric.
The leaves that serve as food for koalas are rich in water and fiber, but poor in essential nutrients. Therefore, a koala needs to ingest between 200 and 500 grams of leaves per day. Thinking that a koala weighs around an average of 10 kg, it's surprising that it needs such a small amount of such a poorly nutritious food to survive.
With this contribution of fresh plant matter, koalas get all the water they need for what it is not usual to see a koala drinking, except in periods of drought.
A food that puts your survival at risk
At the outset, the fact that you can feed on something that is poisonous to your possible competitors within the same habitat seems a great advantage. But in the case of the koala, despite eating other vegetable matter, it has specialized so much that its existence is directly related to eucalyptus and a habitat that suffers from deforestation problems.
In addition, koalas compete with their own congeners for food and space, many koalas that live in a reduced zone suffer from stress issues and fights with each other.
Due to their habit of eating from the branches of trees and just moving from one tree to another, programs to relocate specimens to other eucalyptus forests with lower population density have not been successful. These days, the koala disappeared from many areas it occupied naturally and their number continues to decline.
Other Koala Threats
The koala is a vulnerable species, due in part to the deforestation of forests of eucalyptus, but also suffered in past decades a strongpopulation decline due to hunting. Koalas were hunted for their skin.
Nowadays, even protected, many koalas that live close to urban centers die due to accidents.
