oh stop it.
I never questioned my assumption that Koala's are sweet, adorable little "bears" until I watched Cracking the Koala Code on PBS and whoaaaa. Of course that video is about an hours long, so watch this one. It starts slow but by the end it certainly shows the wrath of the Koala. And, as with most YouTube videos, sorry about the dumbass comments by the narrator:
yep, truth.
So, in this video the female is the one screaming at the beginning when the male's about to attack her, then the male is the one with the terrifying primal grunt-wheeze towards the end. Obviously.
Ew Male Koala, EW.
It's true that majority of the time they eat and sleep (due to a strict low-carb diet of highly indigestible Eucalypt leaves), but that last 10% of their existence is super feral and super intense.
Koala Dominance: Territorial with both their Land and their Ladies.
Male Koala's have a harem that they guard closely and aggressively mate with frequently. When a young male gets old enough, he ventures out on his own to find a mate. Thus, he has to either fight or sneak past an alpha male to get to the ladies. This "transient" life can go on and on for years, inching along the Eucalypt trees and testing dominant males until he's either dead or finally gets a harem of his own. FUN! I love how kind and gentle testosterone is in nature.
Yet, as recorded in DNA testing, the sneakiness of the transient male Koala's is remarkable given that "analysis of parentage found that both resident and transient males sired about equal numbers of offspring".
Sneaky...reminds me of a flamboyant Cuttle Fish.....
Ah, I digress! Isabella, stop it with your seduction!
So, after the biting and scratching and howling that is Koala Warfare the dominant male barks away his opponent, rubs his "scent patch" on a tree to mark his territory, and goes back to the ladies. All of them. Oh, then gives them all Chlamydia which is rampant in the Koala community (about 50% show signs of Chlamydia in populated areas of Australia).
It's funny, I usually refer to Koala's as just "Koala's", but now I've started adding the "bear" part to it.
So, after the biting and scratching and howling that is Koala Warfare the dominant male barks away his opponent, rubs his "scent patch" on a tree to mark his territory, and goes back to the ladies. All of them. Oh, then gives them all Chlamydia which is rampant in the Koala community (about 50% show signs of Chlamydia in populated areas of Australia).
It's funny, I usually refer to Koala's as just "Koala's", but now I've started adding the "bear" part to it.
