hese seemingly furry creatures up, but like many tree-dwelling animals, koalas don’t care where they urinate. If an infected koala urinates on a person, it can transmit the strain of chlamydia to the human. Can you imagine trying to explain that one to your doctor?
In fact, back in 2012, two members of the band One Direction, Harry Styles and Liam Payne, were visiting Australia and stopped in to see a three-year-old koala named Kat. Kat didn’t care how famous they were; he peed on both of them. When the musicians learned afterward that they could contract chlamydia from the urine attack, the boys lamented that they would have avoided the koala altogether had they known. With approximately 80 percent of Australian koala bears carrying the disease, Harry and Liam were fortunate to have dodged that bullet! Keep in mind if you plan to visit and interact with a koala that they tend to urinate much more during the winter seasons.
Koala habitats are composed of “home trees” that they don’t stray too far from. That area makes up what is known as the home range, and there is only one koala to each home range. You might be surprised to learn that they don’t like to be around each other. Unless, of course, they are breeding. Then, all the rules of antisocial behavior go out the window, and they will invade anyone else’s territory in the hopes of finding the perfect mate. However, you would be antisocial if people knew that you might pee on them and give them chlamydia.
Koalas are not social animals in the slightest. They tend to make every effort to avoid or ignore the other colony members, except for the breeding season. However, they do have overlapping territories where some trees may be shared. Now and then, koalas might meet in a shared tree. Even during these rare moments, there is very limited, if any, interaction between the two. They might even be as close as one branch away from each other and still never bother to look at or acknowledge the other, like strangers on a subway train.
Koala home ranges don’t get distributed equally on some “first come, first serve” basis. They have a social hierarchy for determining who gets the prime real estate. Many factors contribute to this hierarchy. Age, sex, and social position are critical in deciding who gets the best and biggest home range. Maybe you’re thinking that humans are just primal for having the same kind of social hierarchy as koalas for deciding who gets to live where. However, koalas have been around for a lot longer than humans. They have been doing this for much longer than we have.
Koalas live in complex social groups. Contrary to popular opinion, they are not migratory animals but are highly territorial. The home range of each animal fits together like a jigsaw puzzle. A home range can consist of several home range trees and food trees, comprising the individual koala’s long-term territory. Within a socially stable group, individual koalas’ home ranges often overlap with those of their neighbors. The shared, overlapping trees house the majority of social interaction and are essential trees. Although not as apparent to the human eye, koalas can tell whether a tree belongs to another koala or not.
23. Koalas Have Stink Glands to Keep You Out Of Their Territory
Koalas are not highly interactive, but they are incredibly territorial. Male koalas have white patches on their chests. These patches are known as scent glands, but they are perhaps better known as stink glands. Mature males use these glands to emit a dark, smelly substance on any other koalas that might intrude on their territory. So there you have it. These nasty, evil little creatures enforce their social hierarchy and self-imposed isolation by spraying on each other, not unlike how a skunk may spray on anything in its path that may alarm it. Are you starting to change your mind about how cute they are?
The strong-smelling oily substance can be rubbed against trees to act as a marker for other koalas. The scent gland even appears to change over the koala’s life and over the course of a year. The scent glands