🐨KOALA FEEDING TIME! 🐨 Getting their fresh eucalyptus leaves is their favorite part of the day! Via: Australian Reptile Park | NBC4

Ever wondered why koalas sleep up to 20 hours a day? Their diet is to blame. Koalas eat almost nothing but eucalyptus leaves, which are tough, low in nutrients, and even slightly toxic. To survive on such poor food, koalas have an incredibly slow metabolism and spend most of their time resting to conserve energy. Their bodies have evolved special enzymes to detoxify the leaves, but the process takes so much effort that long naps are essential. What looks like laziness is actually a survival stra

Leaf connoisseur in the making 🐨 🌱 Baby koalas, called joeys, can’t eat eucalyptus leaves right away. Their stomachs aren’t ready to handle the tough, fibrous leaves, and they don’t yet have the special gut bacteria needed to digest them. When a joey is around 6–7 months old, the mother helps it make the transition from milk to gumleaves by producing a special substance called pap. Unlike the hard, dry pellets of adult koala poo, pap is soft and runny. Pap is rich in protein and, most importan