Thanks for this week’s topic suggestion from Jideobi! This week we’re going to learn all about koalas and some of their strange friends!

The Blood on the Rocks podcast (not for kids) where you can hear a segment by me in the WWI megasode!

An unlocked Patreon episode about wombats

So cuddly, little koala:

I am dying of cute y'all:

I have actually died. I am ded because this mama koala is feeding her baby a leaf:

I came back to life but then I died again because of this monito del monte:

Show transcript:

Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw.

It’s another listener suggestion week! But before we get started, a quick shout-out to the podcast Blood on the Rocks. I was one of about a dozen podcasters who participated in their recent epic World War I megasode. It’s not a podcast for kids since it covers dark topics like true crime and the more gruesome bits of history, but if you are a grown-up type person who finds that sort of thing interesting, I’ll put a link in the show notes so you can check it out. My part of the show was a short segment about the animals of WWI. I also released a different version of the segment as a patreon bonus episode earlier this month.

Anyway, let’s start off this week’s episode about koalas. Thanks to Jideobi, who suggested we learn about the koala. I can’t believe I haven’t covered koalas on the podcast before. They’re such amazing, weird animals.

Many people call the koala a koala bear, but it’s not related to bears. The koala is a marsupial—you know, where the babies stay in their mama’s pouch. It’s most closely related to the wombat, and I was going to talk about the wombat in this episode until I remembered I had a whole Patreon episode about the wombat. I’ve unlocked it so anyone can listen to it. There’s a link in the show notes and you can click on it and listen in your browser, no login needed.

The koala lives near the coasts of eastern and southern Australia in eucalyptus trees. It’s gray, gray-brown, or brown in color, with no tail, short floofy ears, a flat face with a big black nose, and long claws that help it cling to tree trunks. You may already know all this about the koala, and you probably know that almost all it eats is the leaves of the eucalyptus tree. But there is so much more to learn about the koala.

For one thing, its diet. Eucalyptus trees are mostly native to Australia, although people in other parts of the world grow them as ornamentals, although they need warm climates to survive. Koalas eat the leaves of many different types of eucalyptus trees, but they prefer about 30 species, typically ones whose leaves contain higher levels of protein. But eucalyptus leaves contain toxins that make other animals avoid them—toxins that can poison even large animals like horses and cattle if they eat any. Even handling eucalyptus leaves with your bare hands can irritate your skin.

The koala’s liver produces a type of protein called cytochrome P450, which breaks down the toxins and stops them from making the koala sick. Still, researchers have observed that the koala does avoid certain leaves or parts of leaves that contain higher concentrations of the toxins.

Researchers recently sequenced the koala genome, which gives us new genetic understanding of its biology. One thing the genome reveals is the koala genes associated with taste receptors. For most mammals, a bitter taste is a warning that something you’re eating might be toxic. That’s why things like coffee and strong tea are acquired tastes, because they contain compounds that can make the drink taste bitter, especially if it’s not prepared properly. That’s why I put a whole bunch of sugar and milk into my coffee. The koala has more bitter taste receptors than almost any other animal studied, which means it can probably taste the level of toxins in every leaf. This helps it choose the least toxic leaves. Interestingly,