Koalas are fucking horrible animals. They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal, additionally - their brains are smooth. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons. If you present a koala with leaves plucked from a branch, laid on a flat surface, the koala will not recognise it as food. They are too thick to adapt their feeding behaviour to cope with change. In a room full of potential food, they can literally starve to death. This is not the token of an animal that is winning at life. Speaking of stupidity and food, one of the likely reasons for their primitive brains is the fact that additionally to being poisonous, eucalyptus leaves (the only thing they eat) have almost no nutritional value. They can’t afford the extra energy to think, they sleep more than 80% of their fucking lives. When they are awake all they do is eat, shit and occasionally scream like fucking satan. Because eucalyptus leaves hold such little nutritional value, koalas have to ferment the leaves in their guts for days on end. Unlike their brains, they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal. Many herbivorous mammals have adaptations to cope with harsh plant life taking its toll on their teeth, rodents for instance have teeth that never stop growing, some animals only have teeth on their lower jaw, grinding plant matter on bony plates in the tops of their mouths, others have enlarged molars that distribute the wear and break down plant matter more efficiently… Koalas are no exception, when their teeth erode down to nothing, they resolve the situation by starving to death, because they’re fucking terrible animals. Being mammals, koalas raise their joeys on milk (admittedly, one of the lowest milk yields to body ratio… There’s a trend here). When the young joey needs to transition from rich, nourishing substances like milk, to eucalyptus (a plant that seems to be making it abundantly clear that it doesn’t want to be eaten), it finds it does not have the necessary gut flora to digest the leaves. To remedy this, the young joey begins nuzzling its mother’s anus until she leaks a little diarrhoea (actually fecal pap, slightly less digested), which he then proceeds to slurp on. This partially digested plant matter gives him just what he needs to start developing his digestive system. Of course, he may not even have needed to bother nuzzling his mother. She may have been suffering from incontinence. Why? Because koalas are riddled with chlamydia. In some areas the infection rate is 80% or higher. This statistic isn’t helped by the fact that one of the few other activities koalas will spend their precious energy on is rape. Despite being seasonal breeders, males seem to either not know or care, and will simply overpower a female regardless of whether she is ovulating. If she fights back, he may drag them both out of the tree, which brings us full circle back to the brain: Koalas have a higher than average quantity of cerebrospinal fluid in their brains. This is to protect their brains from injury… should they fall from a tree. An animal so thick it has its own little built in special ed helmet. I fucking hate them. Tldr; Koalas are stupid, leaky, STI riddled sex offenders. But, hey. They look cute. If you ignore the terrifying snake eyes and terrifying feet.
edit: Yall know this is a copypasta right?
Follow up:
I don’t know why it is that these things bother me—it just makes me picture a seven year old first discovering things about an animal and, having no context about the subject, ranting about how stupid they are. I get it’s a joke, but people take it as an actual, educational joke like it’s a man yelling at the sea, and that’s just wrong. Furthermore, these things have an actual impact on discussions about conservation efforts—If every time Koalas get brought up, someone posts this copypasta, that means it’s seriously shaping public opinion about the animal and their supposed lack of importance.
“Speaking of stupidity and food, one of the likely reasons for their primitive brains is the fact that additionally to being poisonous, eucalyptus leaves (the only thing they eat) have almost no nutritional value. They can’t afford the extra energy to think, they sleep more than 80% of their fucking lives.”
Non-ecologists always talk this way, and the problem is you’re looking at this backwards.
An entire continent is covered with Eucalyptus trees. They suck the moisture out of the entire surrounding area and use allelopathy to ensure that most of what’s beneath them is just bare red dust. No animal is making use of them——they have virtually no herbivore predator. A niche is empty. Then inevitably, natural selection fills that niche by creating an animal which can eat Eucalyptus leaves. Of course, it takes great sacrifice for it to be able to do so——it certainly can’t expend much energy on costly things. Isn’t it a good thing that a niche is being filled?
“Koalas are no exception, when their teeth erode down to nothing, they resolve the situation by starving to death”
This applies to all herbivores, because the wild is not a grocery store—where meat is just sitting next to celery.
Herbivores gradually wear their teeth down—carnivores fracture their teeth, and break their bones in attempting to take down prey.
“They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal”
It’s pretty typical of herbivores, and is higher than many, many species. According to Ashwell (2008), their encephalisation quotient is 0.5288 +/- 0.051. Higher than comparable marsupials like the wombat (~0.52), some possums (~0.468), cuscus (~0.462) and even some wallabies are <0.5. According to wiki, rabbits are also around 0.4, and they’re placental mammals.
“additionally - their brains are smooth. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons.”
Again, this is not unique to koalas. Brain folds (gyri) are not present in rodents, which we consider to be incredibly intelligent for their size.
“If you present a koala with leaves plucked from a branch, laid on a flat surface, the koala will not recognise it as food.”
If you present a human with a random piece of meat, they will not recognise it as food (hopefully). Fresh leaves might be important for koala digestion, especially since their gut flora is clearly important for the digestion of Eucalyptus. It might make sense not to screw with that gut flora by eating decaying leaves.
“Because eucalyptus leaves hold such little nutritional value, koalas have to ferment the leaves in their guts for days on end. Unlike their brains, they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal.”
That’s an extremely weird reason to dislike an animal. But whilst we’re talking about their digestion, let’s discuss their poop. It’s delightful. It smells like a Eucalyptus drop!
“Being mammals, koalas raise their joeys on milk (admittedly, one of the lowest milk yields to body ratio… There’s a trend here).”
Marsupial milk is incredibly complex and much more interesting than any placentals. This is because they raise their offspring essentially from an embryo, and the milk needs to adapt to the changing needs of a growing fetus. And yeah, of course the yield is low; at one point they are feeding an animal that is half a gram!
“When the young joey needs to transition from rich, nourishing substances like milk, to eucalyptus (a plant that seems to be making it abundantly clear that it doesn’t want to be eaten), it finds it does not have the necessary gut flora to digest the leaves. To remedy this, the young joey begins nuzzling its mother’s anus until she leaks a little diarrhoea (actually fecal pap, slightly less digested), which he then proceeds to slurp on. This partially digested plant matter gives him just what he needs to start developing his digestive system.”
Humans probably do this, we just likely do it during childbirth. You know how women often shit during contractions? There is evidence to suggest that this innoculates a baby with her gut flora. A child born via cesarian has significantly different gut flora for the first six months of life than a child born vaginally.
“Of course, he may not even have needed to bother nuzzling his mother. She may have been suffering from incontinence. Why? Because koalas are riddled with chlamydia. In some areas the infection rate is 80% or higher.”
Chlamydia was introduced to their populations by humans. We introduced a novel disease that they have very little immunity to, and is a major contributor to their possible extinction. Do you hate Native Americans because they were killed by smallpox and influenza?
“This statistic isn’t helped by the fact that one of the few other activities koalas will spend their precious energy on is rape. Despite being seasonal breeders, males seem to either not know or care, and will simply overpower a female regardless of whether she is ovulating. If she fights back, he may drag them both out of the tree,”
Almost every animal does this.
“which brings us full circle back to the brain: Koalas have a higher than average quantity of cerebrospinal fluid in their brains. This is to protect their brains from injury… should they fall from a tree. An animal so thick it has its own little built in special ed helmet. I fucking hate them.”
Errmmm… They have protection against falling from a tree, which they spend 99% of their life in? Yeah… That’s a stupid adaptation.
I always upvote this reply copypasta, and downvote the anti-koala copypasta.
Being a dick towards animals really rubs me the wrong way.
Amazing. Its incredible how some people can be passionate by the stupidest subjects
mine was a copypasta as well
I know I was talking about the copypasta og
yeah, people go above and beyond , especially on niche things
I saw koalas and immediately came here looking for this copy pasta. Thank you. This makes me laugh every time.
They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal, […] they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal
Not all
changeevolution is progress lolCopy pasta worthy
Has been for a few years.
thanks I think people came to lemmy from under a rock. It’s one of the most popular copypastas ever
They just developed a vaccine for koala chlamydia!
Doesn’t fix the other issues, but it’s something.
PS. Needs paragraphs!
Normally I would avoid a giant wall of text like that, but it was such an interesting read I didn’t even care about the paragraph formatting.
I felt bad for skimming it, but even on my laptop it was a big block o’ facts. I mainly just felt like chiming on in the koala vaccine since I hadn’t noticed anyone mention it so far.
Hey it’s the superbowl poster! 👋🏻
I do ocassionally venture out to the other communities! 🦉
This is some mighty genocide inspiring speech you got there! If only Charlie had focused his hatred on Koalas, no one would have cared.
Do animals really rape though? Is consent a concept for them?
Koalas are so dumb, that they can’t recognise a leaf unless it’s on a branch
If you try to offer them a leaf, they won’t touch it, even if they’re hungry
They need to see it on a branch to understand what it is, and that it’s food
And they’re riddled with chlamydia too
Scientists just rolled out a koala Chlamydia vaccine!
They had to evolve away their intelligence to be able to subsist on such a nutrient poor food source. The things you do for an ecological niche, I guess.
Australia truly has the stupidest animals outside of humans
The yanks got the dumbest of those
Well, the 'strayans are certainly running to catch up.
I reckon the English are in second place, with Aussies in third
I wonder if our high sugar diet has a similar effect on us
I know iq has started to decline.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a43469569/american-iq-scores-decline-reverse-flynn-effect/
Once we sit on trees and munch eucalyptus leafs, everything will be much easier.
I mean, one of my favorite foods is a Reese’s peanut cup. I wouldn’t exactly call that nutritionally dense.
I don’t think we’ve got a ton of room to judge here.
You can say the same thing about people lining up at McDonald’s
Royale with cheese.
That’s stupid and I hope you are doing memes and not seriously think that, or maybe watch the Fathead documentary available for free on youtube.
Sure it has too much fat and sugar but to say it has no nutrients is quite stupid.
If only it was toxic if prepared incorrectly and tasted of rubber sock, humans would also adopt it as a delicacy.
They’re also so stupid that if you give em a plate of eucalyptus they’re like “the hell is this?”
These memes, some serious gourmet shit!
Koalas literally have smooth brains.
The thoughts slide right off this dumb cunt… I love him.
Mother Koala: shits our nutrient-poor eucalyptus
Baby Koala: this is some serious gourmet shit
Mmmmmmm…
Pap…
Please do the same for every animal that exists
Coprophages: “This is some serious gourmet shit!”
Apparently the leaves ferment in koalas’ stomachs, with the result that koalas spend their entire lives drunk.
They wouldn’t feel drunk though, because the brain just gets used to the blood alcohol level being constantly high. All of the health problems with none of the fun stuff
So I got something in common with koalas.
You have chlamydia?
And it’s even worse. They only eat some kinds of Eucalyptus. They found this out with a koala in a zoo. They supplied him with fresh branches, but refused to eat them. All while trying to get to some eucalyptus tree right next to his cage. They gave him a branch from that tree, which he devoured.
Turned out that the tree next to the cage and the one where they got the food from were different genetic variants of eucalyptus trees that are indistinguishable for normal humans.
Big Koala Burger
Koala Lumpur
