Koalas

The second quite well-known marsupial mammal is the koala. However, it only lives in specific parts of the country. And if you want to watch them in nature you have to look more exact, because they spend most time sleeping (more than 14 hours a day!!!) or eating in the treetops. From the more than 500 sorts of eucalyptus only about a dozen serve as food for koalas. This is also the reason why it's even hard to see the animals in zoological gardens outside the continent, because these kinds of eucalyptus only grow in Australia. Koalas do not have any timidity of people. If you have the luck and see a koala sitting on the ground, you supposedly can pet it. But you should not pick them up, because then they scratch and maybe infect you with a disease.

A good possibility to see them outside of zoos are koala hospitals (e.g. in Port Macquarie), where the animals are nursed after bush fires, dog bites, car accidents and virus diseases. In these hospitals and special reservations keepers try to work against the decreasing koala population.

Koalas spend most of their time in tree tops