animal fact o'the week: koalas are STD-ridden dum-dums

howdy howdy! today we will be talking about another cute australian creature: koala bears!!!

koalas bears… cute, cuddly, and naaaasty. there is currently a major outbreak of chlamydia among them; upwards of 90% of koala bears have it! yikes.
though most of them catch it through sexual transmission, baby koala bears can catch it from eating pap- their mother’s nutritious poop (yikes pt. 2).
in humans, we treat this STD with antibiotics. but giving antibiotics to koala bears is not a good treatment plan, as their gut bacteria is finely tuned to allow them to eat eucalyptus leaves & antibiotics indiscriminately destroy gut bacteria. eucalyptus leaves are high in a compound called tannin, which is a highly toxic if ya don’t have the right stuff in your belly to break it down. we have developed a vaccine for treatment, but as you can imagine, vaccinating wild animals is…. tricky.

and if we didn’t have enough of a reason to feel bad for our lil koala buds- due to their minimally nutritious diet of eucalyptus leaves, their brains are shrinking & becoming smoother. their cranial cavity is much larger than their brain, so their brain is just shakin’ around in there. oh koalas! we are trying to save you… but you are making it a bit difficult.

animal fact o'the week: wombat poop

so i’m obsessed with animal facts. i love learning lil tidbits about the wonders & delights of the world all around us….. it gives me hope, usually makes me giggle, and gives me the opportunity to reflect upon how enchanting our lives on this magnificent planet are.

so for the first one… let’s talk about wombat’s fabulous feces!

wombats, the adorable short-legged marsupial beans native to Austrailia, have CUBE SHAPED POOP! what! (yo what do their butts look like?!) they produce 80-100 dice-sized poop cubes a night. some scientists say it’s to mark territory (cubed poos never roll away) but i think they wanted to make biodegradeable stackable blocks for their kiddos. only the wombats themselves could answer our questions but unfortunately they don’t speak any human languages (yet).

if you are interested in hearing more about their excellent excrement, one of my favorite podcasts “every little thing” hosted by flora lichtman & produced by gimlet media, has an excellent episode about the subject called “Who Invented the Bloomin’ Onion? Plus, Biology’s Best Butt”

and i know you need to see a picture of the world’s #1 number two so here ya go: