RRrrrrrrrinnnnng!  The alarm goes off.  It’s time to get up and get ready for school, but you would really like to sleep in just a little bit longer—maybe an hour or two.  Unfortunately, your mom says, “Rise and shine, sleepyhead!” and forces you out of bed and off to school.  A koala leaves its mother to take care of itself somewhere between the ages of one and three years old.  And it really takes advantage of sleeping in—the koala sleeps between 18 and 22 hours a day!

When it’s awake, the koala usually limits its activity to eating.  If its day sounds a little boring to you, probably so does what it eats.  The koala eats only eucalyptus leaves.  Even though there are about 600 kinds of eucalyptus, the koala is a fussy eater and will choose only a few species to eat. Koalas don’t normally drink; they get the water they need from eating the eucalyptus.  About the only time a koala will drink is if there is a drought and the plants don’t contain as much water.

Eucalyptus leaves actually contain toxins, or poisons, which can be harmful to other animals, but a koala has special bacteria in its stomach that get rid of these poisons.  Still, the koala doesn’t get much energy from eating just eucalyptus, so it moves pretty slowly even when it’s awake.  The koala will rarely climb down to the ground except to move on to another food tree.

In the early 1900s, hundreds of thousands of koalas were killed for their fur.  Though koalas are now a protected species, their habitats are not protected.  Since koalas have such a special diet, destroying eucalyptus trees basically leaves koalas nowhere to live and nothing to eat.  There are many conservation organizations trying to get laws passed which protect these habitats as well as the animals.