A note on all the curves being very koala that is really interesting. Koalas carry almost zero body fat. Hard to believe when you look at a rotund girl like this, and yesterday I said, all the curves.
But it is true!
When you see a nice round koala they have lots of muscle on their limbs (so important when you see how they climb and leap), but it is a really full caecum (our appendix) that makes them look so satisfactorily tubby.
When you see that Matilda here is only around 5 kg in size, then factor that she has a caecum that is a whopping 2 metres long (as well as all the digestive organs), then what you can see is a koala that is eating well, is a roly poly ball. And that is why they then have to sleep for hours!
every time you show me another angle I see those koala's in a different way , sometimes they re smaller than I expect but in this shot, probably because she is turning her head, she is round with a small head. Love it! theta re the cutest.
I wonder why they have such a large caecum, and what does it do? It seems that our appendix doesn't do that much, I mean people seem to do quite well even after having it removed. So wh would Koala's need such a big one. Does it help with digesting their particular diet or something like that?
ETA: just looked it up and it seems, in herbivores it holds on to food for longer to give time for the food to break down more. 365 is such an educational motivator.
@gardencat@jacqbb great question and discussion! koalas are "hind gut fermenters". The other main animals that digest this way are rhinos, zebras, horses and elephants. How is that for being in awesome company!
the caecum is full of 'symbiotic bacteria' - this means that the billions of bacteria live in the caecum, so they get benefit, and they break down the cellulose for the koala so that they can get the benefit of the nutrition inside the cells.
Ruminant like cattle have 4 stomachs that contain bacteria and they regurgitate their food after the acid in the first stomach start the breaking down. They then chew it again (chewing the cud) and it passes to the second stomach and then through the 3rd and 4th.
The bacteria in the koalas caecum are highly specialised for breaking down the very tough eucalyptus leaf. In fact, we find that koalas living in different areas have difference in the biome (bacterial content) of the caecum because they eat different species.
So without 2 metres of caecum, the koala would not be able to eat the eucalyptus leaves.
OK there we go, start me up and I'll never stop 🤣
ETA: just looked it up and it seems, in herbivores it holds on to food for longer to give time for the food to break down more. 365 is such an educational motivator.
@koalagardens Great shot and narrative!
the caecum is full of 'symbiotic bacteria' - this means that the billions of bacteria live in the caecum, so they get benefit, and they break down the cellulose for the koala so that they can get the benefit of the nutrition inside the cells.
Ruminant like cattle have 4 stomachs that contain bacteria and they regurgitate their food after the acid in the first stomach start the breaking down. They then chew it again (chewing the cud) and it passes to the second stomach and then through the 3rd and 4th.
The bacteria in the koalas caecum are highly specialised for breaking down the very tough eucalyptus leaf. In fact, we find that koalas living in different areas have difference in the biome (bacterial content) of the caecum because they eat different species.
So without 2 metres of caecum, the koala would not be able to eat the eucalyptus leaves.
OK there we go, start me up and I'll never stop 🤣