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While this cuddly looking animal may remind one of a teddy bear the Koala bear is actually not a bear at all. It is a marsupial, meaning it has a pouch in which to carry its young. The Wombat is the closest relative to the Koala bear. An ancient Koala bear burrowed in the dirt; even though the Koala stopped burrowing and began living in trees long ago the pouch still faces the rear legs. The Koala bear is the only member of the Phascolarctos cinereus family which means ash colored pouched bear.

The soft looking fur of the Koala feels like the wool of a sheep. Their grey fur is paler on the underside with white patches on the stomach, chest and chins with a white fringe around the ears. Koala bears vary in size and color depending on where they live in Australia. They are larger and have thicker grey fur in the color climates while in warmer climates they have more browny colored fur and are smaller.

The habitat of the Koala bear is the tall eucalypt forest and the low woodlands. A territorial animal the Koala bear has stable breeding groups and an area of trees known as the "home range." The size of this range will depend on the sex, age and social position of the animal within the group. They only visit each others homes during the breeding season. The Koala bears only breeds once a year between the months of December and March and only has one baby at a time.

Baby Koala's are called joeys and are the size of a jelly bean when born. They do not resemble the grown-up version of themselves at all as they are born blind, bald and without ears weighing less than one gram. They immediately climb across the fur and into their mother's pouch where they feed on milk for six months. At thirty weeks they are weaned and begin to eat "pap" a special feces that they lick from the mother's fur. Pap is high in nutrients and contains micro-organisms from her digestive system that helps the Joey to start digesting eucalyptus leaves which are the Koala bears only source of food.

Out of over six hundred types of Eucalyptus trees the Koala bear can only eat the leaves from twelve of them which their large nose and keen sense of smell help them to determine. While Eucalyptus leaves are toxic to most animals the Koala bears digestive system detoxifies the poison and they eat twelve to twenty one ounces of leaves a day. The tip is the juiciest and softest part of the leaf and what the Koala bear prefers to eat.

Mainly nocturnal animals they spend up to twenty hours per day sleeping

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