The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book. The illustrations that appear in the book were created in Macromedia Freehand 5.0 by Chris Reilley. This colophon was written by Clairemarie Fisher O'Leary. The koala is an Australian marsupial, the only member of the Phascolarctidae family. This cuddly looking animal was the original model for teddy bears, although it actually is not related to bears.
Koalas use their extremely sharp claws for climbing eucalyptus trees.
They subsist almost exclusively on eucalyptus leaves and bark. They are picky eaters, eating only about 20 of the approximately 350 species of eucalyptus in Australia. Since eucalyptus leaves contain the precursors to hydrocyanic acid, or cyanide, koalas also occasionally eat soil, which helps detoxify their food. Koalas in the wild rarely, if ever, drink water. Koalas are tiny, approximately one-half of a gram, when they are born.