Koalas are marsupials, which means they re first cousin to animals like kangaroos. Their hands and feet are specially adapted for climbing trees. When they re on the ground, however, they shuffle along very awkwardly on their short, stocky legs. Even if you walk through many Australian forests, however, you ll never stumble on a koala. First, you won t stumble over one because they re up in the trees.
Koalas live almost exclusively in the top branches of eucalyptus trees.
All they eat are the leaves of eucalyptus trees. That s all. An adult koala eats between one and two pounds of eucalyptus leaves every day. Koalas don t even sample anything else. In fact, they don t even drink anything else.