this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
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They are not extinct so I think they are nailing it
Funny you say that, theyre on their way to extinction
Well, it's probably not the fault of the species responsible for the current great extinction, is it? /s
Rampant chlamydia is playing a part but sadly it’s mostly human driven.
Man, I told Bob not to fuck that panda.
Its just like pandas, if you can find a niche where there is a ton of low quality food that nobody else wants but you can gobble it down then you win.
koalas are kinda of worst off than pandas.
!Subscribe
Same with Puffins. Cute little flying penguins that happily catch worms in their beak, only to be robbed in mid-air by hawks and other birds of prey.
How did they survive this long? They're good at breeding, and do well in times of abundance....
You know evolution is more survival than evolution or women wouldn't be bleeding needlessly every month?
This pasta aged well.
oh and they can eat a specific type of eucalyptus, and not just any type like the invasive blue gum. and they wont conceptualize leaves in front of them, if its not on a branch.
also being susceptible to chlamydia, which was theoretically though to have come from farm animals by colonist centuries ago. additionally, they have a retrovirus, called koala retrovrisus(koala HIV) which likely came from a monkey virus(high genetic similarities), they dont know how it came from them.
Just wait until all plants in Australia die out except for eucalyptus trees and koalas take over the continent
Relevant: https://youtube.com/shorts/9IZ410VrikQ
Koalas
a small overview about the chlamydia
and it isn't even something they causedit was from invasive species.
One brief overview
with some extra info
The reason koalas eat only eucalyptus isn't stupidity. It's niche evolution. They live in a place with high competition for resources. Having specialized digestive tracts and gut flora allows them to have a food source that isn't under competition. this is a benefit, not a failure. They literally eat something that is poisonous to pretty much every other species. That is an incredible evolutionary adaptation.
Their joeys eating pap is not exclusive to koalas either. It's not only found across the world, the exposure to the gut flora of the parent happens with most mammals, if in a less direct manner. You can even find a ton of information about what happens when human gut flora becomes unbalanced, and it isn't very pretty. It's just worse for koalas.
Not every species is a generalist, and we don't want them to be.
a note on why koalas bellow so much
The source may be a crappy blog, but the information in it matches more detailed data from better sources, and keeps it short enough for this.
As with most behaviors in other species, attributing human judgement and definitions tends to be misleading. While koalas are pretty unique in the lack of mating rituals, they're not doing it for human reasons. Nor are attempts to copulate outside of season as common as the pasta makes it seem. Besides, that's something humans actually do share with them besides the presence of fingerprints. It also isn't so rare in animals as to be remarkable. Copulation behaviors are used outside of mating by plenty of species for social reasons. It isn't in koalas, but since it does increase the chances of mating, it isn't a bad adaptation.
And the extra cerebro-spinal fluid isn't a special ed helmet, it's another adaptation found in other tree dwelling species. Why would an arboreal species having adaptations to mitigate risk from falls be a negative?
Yeah, I get it, the pasta is meant for entertainment, but it also spreads half truths, outright incorrect or outdated information, and skips over facts for the entertainment value. Then people read it and spout it out later as fact.
It's just a crappy copy pasta, not anything meant to be taken as truth, but people are more dumb than koalas.
This pasta in particular isn't the worst (the sunfish one takes the prize for being the most full of bull). Nor is it a bad thing to enjoy as entertainment. But for crying out loud people, don't take random, unsourced copy pasta as an educational tool.
Also This comment covers some things I missed
Then there's this one that is even better
You know Lemmy is getting good when you have comments like this
Like how the fuck do you know so much about koalas? It’s a rethorical question mostly. Thank you for sharing :)