33: Luna Moth & Koala

Ellen: Hey everyone, it's Ellen Weatherford!

Christian: And Christian Weatherford.

Ellen: And we're back with Just the Zoo of Us, your favorite animal review podcast where we take your favorite species of animals and we review them and rate them out of 10 in the categories of effectiveness, ingenuity and aesthetics.

Christian: We, the inhabitants of 2019, are not zoological experts.

Ellen: We still will not be in 2020. At the time of this recording, it's still 2019, but by the time this episode goes out it will be 2020, and I don't anticipate either of us suddenly becoming zoological experts in the next... 48 hours.

Christian: But regardless, hello, future people of 2020. This is 2019 Christian.

Ellen: And you know, it's been a minute since we've been in the saddle recording a new episode. It's been a few weeks. We had some time off. Though lots of new people have joined us. We have a lot of new people listening so that's really exciting.

Christian: I have forgotten how to record. I tried to eat the microphone, that's not how it works.

Ellen: We're recording live from inside Christian's intestines. I just wanted to mention that when we went on our little holiday break, we put a little survey out there asking people what they thought for their feedback and for things that they thought we should modify or change. And we had some, a lot of really great suggestions that we really took to heart and one of those was incorporating a voting system into our species requests. So if you've been listening for a while, you know that normally we just kind of take requests, and people let us know what they want to hear and and we kind of fit them into our schedule where we feel it's right. But what we're going to start doing is every week when the episode goes up, we're also going to put up a poll with species requests in the poll that you can vote on for the following week's episode. So y'all will be picking the animals that we talk about, and that's going to be for one of the animals. The other one will be a surprise, because as you all know, we usually do two animals per episode.

Christian: And then we'll switch back and forth as to who's doing the surprise and who's doing the poll.

Ellen: Yes, so one of us will have complete and total freedom, the other one will be a slave to popular opinion.

Christian: But we're still picking what's on that poll, right? Or is it open poll?

Ellen: No, no, no, absolutely not. It will not be an open poll. So we're still taking requests of course, like people- I still want people to tell us what they want to hear, but I'll be selecting a few of those requests to be putting into the weekly poll.

Christian: Sorry botfly fans.

Ellen: We've already done that one. I'm not going to do it again.

Christian: But they want more.

Ellen: I think if we did an open poll, it would just be a bot fly every episode.

Christian: Just a different species.

Ellen: No, absolutely not.

Christian: So who's that first this week? It has been a lifetime.

Ellen: It has been 3,000 years since we were last with you guys, but this week I'm first.

Christian: All right, hit it baby.

Ellen: This week, I'm talking about the Luna moth.

Christian: Very good.

Ellen: Scientific name, Actias luna. This species was not submitted. I'm sorry. I just wanted to talk about it!

Christian: It's alright!

Ellen: This was not a request. I figured, you know, it's been a while since we did an episode. I wanted us to get back into the swing of things with some like, animals that we wanted to talk about, just kind of for ourselves. This one was requested by me. I wanted to talk about it. I requested it from myself. So I'm getting my information on the Luna moth from the University of Florida's Entomology and Nematology Department, which their website can be found at entnemdept.ifas.ufl.edu.

Christian: That's a mouthful.

Ellen: It's a lot! And also the Florida museum.

Christian: Oh cool.

Ellen: Those are my sources for this. So if you've never met a Luna moth, I'll introduce you real quick. This obviously is a moth. Their adult wingspan is typically around 4 to a maximum of 7 inches long, so 4 inches equates to 10.5 centimeters.

Christian: It's a biggun.

Ellen: It is! This is a big ol' moth. It's really big, especially if you're used to those tiny little ones you see flitting around, like inside of your house. This is a big boy. It has a very fluffy white body and it has big, those bushy leaf-shaped antenna. You know what I'm talking about? Where they're kind of tapered, they're kind of an oval shape with a pointy end. Right?

Christian: You said they're white?

Ellen: I'm talking about the antenna.

Christian: Yeah, sorry, I was still stuck on that one.

Ellen: Oh, the body of it?

Christian: Yeah.

Ellen: Yeah. The body of it is white and it's very fluffy.

Christian: I guess I was imagining green for some reason.

Ellen: Well, the wings are green.

Christian: Ohhh, okay.

Ellen: Yeah, so it has these huge, paper-thin light green wings, and they have markings on them that look like an eye spot on each wing. Have you seen a moth that has a spot on there that's meant to look like an eyeball?

Christian: Yeah.

Ellen: Yeah, they have one on each wing and they have four wings, so it's four eyespots in total.

Christian: Ah! Scary and strange!

Ellen: It's a spooky predator with four eyes, I guess. And those eye spots actually kind of resemble crescent moon shapes, which is where the name Luna moth comes from because those eyes look like moons.

Christian: Okay.

Ellen: Yeah. And what's really kind of the defining characteristic of the Luna moth is that their hind wings extend into these long, ribbon-like tails that trail behind them. That's like how you know it's a Luna moth. Right?

Christian: Right.

Ellen: That's like the distinctive trait that they have. That's how they're easily identifiable is with this, this tail.they're kind of the only ones that have a tail like this. It's pretty cool.

Christian: Yeah.

Ellen: I guess there's butterflies that have this, right? A little bit of a swallowtail behind them.

Christian: Yeah. They do that interesting flappy thing as they're flying. I guess their whole wings do an interesting flappy thing, but especially that part.

Ellen: Yeah. You're not how they flap their wings to fly? So that's just kind of generally what a Luna moth looks like. They are found throughout eastern North America, so all the way from Canada down to Florida, all along the eastern North American continent. But I didn't realize that they went all the way up to Canada. So that's pretty cool. The taxonomic family is called Saturniidae. This is a family of medium to extra large moths. These are like, the big boys of the whole moth family.

Christian: Do you have any etymology information about that name by any chance?

Ellen: Saturniidae?

Christian: Yeah.

Ellen: What I saw was that the name comes from the fact that the spots can sometimes have these rings around them that look like Saturn.

Christian: Oh, okay.

Ellen: But it's the eyespots on the wings that make them look like that. That's where the name comes from.

Christian: Because I was, it made me think of the word Saturnalia.

Ellen: Oh, like the holiday.

Christian: Yeah, yeah.

Ellen: Which probably just passed. Or maybe it's coming up? I know it's one of these winter holidays.

Christian: Maybe.

Ellen: Oops. I don't know very much about Saturnalia. Oh well. But I wanted to take a quick aside to delve into some differences between butterflies and moths.

Christian: Very good.

Ellen: Because I think when I first saw Luna moth, I assumed it was a butterfly because it's pretty, and I just thought if it's pretty, it's a butterfly and it's not pretty, it's a moth. But I was wrong.

Christian: The Pokemon method.

Ellen: But so there are some differences between butterflies and moths. One of the key differences being that generally speaking, butterflies are diurnal, so they're active and awake during the day, and moths are nocturnal and they're awake at night and they sleep during the day. So that leads to a lot of interesting morphological differences between butterflies and moths because of their activity times. So since butterflies are awake during the day, they rely more heavily on vision, whereas moths rely more on scent. So you can see this in the fact that the moth has those bushier antennae, so they're collecting more like, particles in the air to collect scents and chemical signals better. So that's why butterflies don't have those bushy antenna because they're using their eyesight to see so they don't have to smell as well.

Christian: Okay.

Ellen: Yeah. And that also contributes to the tendency for butterflies to be more brightly-colored and patterned with these high contrasting sort of like colors and patterns and stuff, so they can more easily see each other in daylight because they're using their eyes. But moths tend to be colored more subtly with like grays and browns. So they're actually going for camouflage.

Christian: Right.

Ellen: So they're trying to stay camouflaged while they're resting during the day. Since they're not trying to find each other with their eyes, they don't have to be as visible.

Christian: They want the opposite.

Ellen: Right? They want to not be visible to each other.

Christian: I've seen moths that look almost exactly like tree bark when their wings are closed.

Ellen: Yeah, yeah, yeah! So that's because they're sleeping during the day, so they don't want to, they want to be able to disguise themselves. And this also explains why moths look fuzzier than butterflies. You know how moths just look fluffy?

Christian: Yeah, yeah.

Ellen: So that's actually a thick layer of scales on the whole body. Those are scales. So the scales trap heat to keep the moth warm at night. So while it's moving, its body is moving, it's generating some friction and those scales trap the heat inside. And butterflies don't need that because they're active during the day so the sun warms them up.

Christian: Right.

Ellen: That's just another way that their activity cycles change the way they look, which I thought was really interesting.

Christian: For sure.

Ellen: Yeah. So other members of the Saturniidae family include the Atlas moth, which is that big, huge, like orange one that has all the crazy markings on it. The Polyphemus moth, which is the one that's known for those big, huge eyespots that make it look like something scary is looking back at you.

Christian: Yeah.

Ellen: Yeah. So some of those other ones that share kind of the similar size and shape of the Luna moth.

Christian: Okay.

Ellen: Those are some of its little cousins. So I'm going to get into our ratings. It's been so long since we've done it. I'm really excited.

Christian: I think the first one was... Tastiness?

Ellen: No it's not! I would not eat a Luna moth. It seems like it wouldn't be very nutritionally dense. Right? You're not going to get much of a meal out of it.

Christian: I mean, I feel like a bat might disagree, but...

Ellen: Oh, I'm going to talk about that. Don't worry. Don't worry. Don't worry. So first category up is effectiveness. And if this is your first time joining us, effectiveness we define as physical characteristics that an animal has that make it better at accomplishing what it's trying to do. I'm, I'm giving the Luna moth a 5 out of 10 for effectiveness.

Christian: Really?

Ellen: Yeah. I was a little harsh on the Luna moth.

Christian: Okay. Starting the new year on that foot.

Ellen: I didn't mean to come back in with such shade. I mean, 5 out of 10 is supposed to be like, passable, right? That's supposed to be like, middle ground, average. Although I suppose if you get a 5 out of 10 on a test, right? That's like a failing grade.

Christian: Yeah, but this is our scaling system. We can...

Ellen: It means whatever we want it to mean.

Christian: Yeah.

Ellen: So I give it a 5 out of 10. So first I want to talk about the life cycle of the Luna moth. So a Luna moth, like other moths, it begins life as an egg. The egg incubates for about a week before hatching into a supremely chonky green caterpillar. It's bright green, it's a little bit hairy. It has those like sparse thin hairs that a lot of caterpillars have.

Christian: Like the scary spiky hair type things?

Ellen: No, it's not- I mean, there's some little spikes on it, but it's, it definitely doesn't look scary.

Christian: Okay.

Ellen: So the caterpillar munches on leaves and it goes through these molts, where it molts about five times over the course of like about a month before it pupates. Pupating means that it spins itself a silk cocoon, and it usually kind of like tries to pupate where there's a bunch of leaves it could blend in with. And then it has itself a nice big nap for about three weeks before emerging from its cocoon as an adult winged moth. So that's its lifecycle. It has very distinct phases of life, right? Caterpillar, cocoon, moth.

Christian: Okay.

Ellen: Very straightforward, very like identifiable in each stage. So I will kind of go into what I gave it points for. So the things it's good at. It has some defenses from predators. So first of all is the eyespots on the wings. So they're meant to like intimidate potential predators or at least to confuse them, right? You might look at it and think, "Oh, those are eyes. I must be looking at some sort of large animal, not just a moth."

Christian: But that would require that predator to be able to see you. Right?

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. So another thing that I gave them was that their green coloration does give them some camouflage among leaves, cause they typically like to live in forests where there's a lot of leaves around. Though I suppose that's not going to do them too much in the winter. Right? When all the leaves turn like orange and brown. It would work great here in Florida where the leaves are green all year.

Christian: But again that camouflage bit must not be super important since they're nocturnal.

Ellen: Yeah, it's not the most important. So this was kind of the biggest thing I gave it effectiveness points for: the tails. So the tails trailing behind the body are actually a highly specialized defense mechanism evolved to evade one predator in particular: bats.

Christian: Really?

Ellen: Yes. So at night when the Luna moth is flying around, that's when bats are using echolocation to find their prey. Because bats that are preying on bugs like moths would be using echolocation. So when bats are using echolocation, they're relying on sound waves bouncing off of surfaces to tell them the size, shape, location of what they're going for. The Luna moth's twin trails that are flapping behind the moth trick the bat into thinking that those are actually the wings of a smaller moth, like a little bite-sized moth that would be very easy for the bat to capture. So the bat gets confused, it thinks that that is the moth and it attacks the tails and the tails just rip right off and the Luna moth is able to get away.

Christian: Huh.

Ellen: Yeah. So it's a little evasion tactic, right? It's kind of like how a lizard can drop its tail and run away.

Christian: Sure.

Ellen: But I couldn't give them too many points for this because while that is really cool and really clever, the tails don't grow back. So this only works once.

Christian: One and done.

Ellen: It's going to get you out of a tight spot one time.

Christian: I guess I was, my guess was going to be that the tails made it look like a bigger animal than it was, but... Quite the opposite.

Ellen: Not really. Now those do not protect them from our walls.

Christian: Oh, okay. That would make sense.

Ellen: Yes. Because owls are actually relying on vision and this is a highly visible moth. So, so yeah, owls will just chomp right down on these little guys.

Christian: Interesting.

Ellen: Mhmm. People often will find owls' nests, and on the forest floor surrounding the owl's nest will just be like all sorts of like dead Luna moth like wings scattered around on the floor.

Christian: That would be something neat to see in a game like Skyrim, where you come across a nest of some sort and it's just surrounded by moth wings.

Ellen: Yeah. So that's essentially what's going on here. Cause that's such, that's a strategy that's made for the bat, but it doesn't work for the owl that's not relying on sound.

Ellen: Hate to see it.

Ellen: I know! So, the last kind of defense that I gave it is actually for the caterpillar. The Luna moth's caterpillar can try to deter predators by first it makes this clicking sound that can be like, kind of startling. It's like a clicking, like a rapid clicking sound. And then if that doesn't work, that is a warning for what they do next, which is regurgitating a nasty liquid that smells and tastes very, very bad. So it makes the caterpillar less appetizing.

Christian: I mean how nice of them to give a warning first and not resort to that.

Ellen: Yeah, I mean I would imagine if they were threatened enough they would do both. Right? Just... [Spraying sound]

Christian: It's got to come with a cost though, right? I mean that's nutrients that it's getting rid of.

Ellen: Yeah. you don't want to do that too much. Right? That's not something you can do all the time. But yeah they will... [bleh]. So that brings me to the deductions for the Luna moth's effectiveness. So the adult Luna moth only has vestigial, completely useless mouth parts.

Christian: Oh!

Ellen: They don't function at all. So once the Luna moth has wings and can fly, its sole purpose is reproduction. It does not eat at all. It's just trying to find a mate and that's it. So that being the case, the adult Luna month only lives for like a max of one week.

Christian: Wow.

Ellen: Usually less than that. Usually it's only like a few days but a maximum of one week. Cause it's not eating! It can't live that long. They really put themselves on a timer, right? Like they have severely limited their amount of time available to them.

Christian: So that's quite a week of both hunger and thirst, huh?

Ellen: [laughs] Oh nooo! Yes. Both of those things. So that's only one week, and that's only like an eighth of its lifespan. So, it's only an adult for like a little blip in its life really.

Christian: Okay.

Ellen: Which I think is kind of crazy. Right? So this whole thing of like discarding the feeding mechanic is actually not really uncommon for moths. There actually a lot of moths that do this where the adult form just doesn't eat at all. They're like, you know what? We're done. We're done eating. We're just not doing it anymore. Earlier I mentioned the Atlas and the Polynemus moths, both of them are done eating once they are adults. And actually we, the last episode that we did was the European eel and they also stop eating when they're adults.

Christian: Really?

Ellen: Do you reme- Yes, really. I just talked about it.

Christian: That was like, a month ago, Ellen!

Ellen: But the European eel had a much more daunting task ahead of it, cause it would stop eating and then have to cross the Atlantic ocean.

Christian: It's like, "I have to go here." Why not somewhere closer? "NO."

Ellen: That's what I said! That's what I said! But so they're kind of playing on hard mode, you know? And that sucks for the Luna moth because the Luna moth has these really, really delicate wings that tear very easily. So...

Christian: Womp womp.

Ellen: Like even just like minor, very gentle handling can cause like damage to the Luna moth's wing.

Christian: I mean I guess that's what it's designed for, because you don't want it to be so sturdy that even if a bet catches you by the those parts, it still has your entire body.

Ellen: Yeah. You want them to be kind of tearaway, but then that really just kind of- when that's your only method of getting from point A to point B... Yeah.

Christian: It is what it is I suppose.

Ellen: I guess. So my takeaway here was that the Luna moth spends the largest portion of its life as a caterpillar, and honestly the caterpillar is better equipped for survival than the adult Luna moth. It's like, more powerful as a baby than it is as an adult. Even though its only method of movement is squirming around on little tiny caterpillar legs and it doesn't have its wings yet, at least it still has a mouth. So I think the Luna moth caterpillar is actually a little bit more buff than the Luna moth adult. This is like a Pokemon that you don't- you actually don't want it to evolve because its stats in its like base evolution are better.

Christian: But it's prettier!

Ellen: It, yeah, it is pretty. For our next category is ingenuity, and we define ingenuity as behavioral adaptations that give the animal an edge over maybe other animals or let it solve problems it's encountering on a sort of daily basis. And for ingenuity, I'm giving the Luna moth a 3 out of 10.

Christian: Okay. Kind of to be expected of an insect, I suppose.

Ellen: Yeah. So kind of the whole stereotype of- so think of the moth lamp memes. They hold true for the Luna moth. The Luna moth has a strong attraction to light, specifically UV light.

Christian: Huh.

Ellen: Yeah. So Luna moths will be drawn towards a light source. So this is why most of the time when you hear about people seeing them, it's at night when they have come to, for example, like a porch lamp or a streetlight or something.

Christian: Yeah.

Ellen: They'll be drawn towards that, towards that light source.

Christian: So what is the reason for the Luna moth to be attracted to that?

Ellen: I do not know. I'm sorry. I would imagine just like since they don't see very well, maybe like any sort of light source would give them better vision? So they would need to fly towards it so that they can see better?

Christian: But then they just hang out there.

Ellen: Yeah, I do not know. Maybe they're just hoping that like, hey, there's something I can see! I hope another one of my species is also going in that direction and is receptive to me mating with it. Like maybe it's just a landmark that they can converge on that is easier for them to see.

Christian: I guess so.

Ellen: Yeah. Actually light pollution can interfere with Luna moth's mating patterns and it can impact their populations in more urban areas where the moth is being kind of distracted by the light and it's not focusing on finding a mate like it's supposed to be.

Christian: Huh. Interesting.

Ellen: Yeah. That sucks. So its behavior during these like phases of its life are very simple and very goal-oriented. It's there for feedin' and it's there for breedin'. But yeah, feedin' and breedin', that's, that's what the Luna moth does. It has those two goals and that's all it really cares about.

Christian: It's admirable, really.

Ellen: And I also had to deduct some for the fact that female Luna moths tend to meet with the first male that reaches her.

Christian: I mean when you're operating on this kind of timeline...

Ellen: I was just like girl, come on. Have some sort of like selection standards, right? Like maybe one of them has longer, like wing tail ribbon things or maybe one of them is a brighter green, but she's like, "Nope! You are near me."

Christian: She is hangry. She is going to die soon.

Ellen: That clock is ticking. She is on a schedule so she's not here to waste time.

Christian: Things want to eat her.

Ellen: 3 out of 10 for their ingenuity. And this brings me to our final category for the Luna moth: aesthetics. Easy. Come on. 10 out of 10. This is like, THE pretty bug.

Christian: It is.

Ellen: I keep saying bug. I'm sure they're not a true bug. I'm just saying, they're so beautiful. They're mystical looking, right? Like you look at them and they look like they should be in some sort of like, fantasy movie about elves and dragons and stuff. Right? Like they look like a fairy that's flying around in our world for some reason. And you're like, how did you get here? Like, how are you extant in this realm? Like they, they don't look like they belong on earth. Right?

Christian: Yeah, yeah.

Ellen: They look like some sort of fae. So it's a very successful look. I find them really perfect and wonderful. So 10 out of 10 Oh, and that's specifically for the adult form, right? Like the caterpillar is... It's a caterpillar, but that's all.

Christian: It is a pretty butter- I almost said butterfly. A pretty moth.

Ellen: See? I think they look like butterflies. Right?

Christian: Yeah.

Ellen: But they're not. They're moths. But, so that's why whenever people say that butterflies are pretty and moths are not, bring out the Luna moth. That's your example right there. They're beautiful. I think the Luna moth is prettier than any butterfly. There. I said it. That's my hot take.

Christian: Whaaaat? I don't know...

Ellen: Show me, this is my challenge to our listeners. Show me a butterfly that's prettier than a Luna moth.

Christian: Okay, I'll find one too.

Ellen: You will? Okay. Well the race is on. But so to wrap up for the Luna moths and miscellaneous information, their conservation status is not evaluated. Lots of people think that Luna moths are very rare, but that's actually not necessarily the case. So the species itself is not rare, but since their adult form is such a small little sliver of their lifespan, an eighth of their life, they spend as this fully grown moth with wings and stuff and also very easily killed in this form. Right? So they're not going to make it but a couple of days probably. So since that they're only in adult for a very small little portion of their life and then their caterpillar and cocoon phases are completely unremarkable. Right? They look like any other caterpillar or moth cocoon or whatever. You're not going to look at one and think, "Oh my gosh, that's a Luna moth." Right. So you're not likely to notice or recognize them during seven eighths of their lifespan. So they're not actually as rare as people think they are, you're probably seeing them more than you think. They just look a little bit more drab in their other, less visually successful forms.

Christian: Makes sense.

Ellen: Yeah. So we have seen Luna moths twice. We saw them one time in our first apartment that we ever lived in. Christian came home- you must have come home after me, cause I remember you coming inside and saying, "you gotta come out here and look at this moth." I was like, what? And so I came outside and there was a Luna moth on the wall outside of our apartment. It was just sitting there chilling out and we all- I got to run inside and get my camera and take a bunch of cool pictures of it. Um, my, he's now five years old, but he would have been two or three at the time, and he got to come out and look at it and that was really cool. And then another time we were just sitting at a Starbucks chatting outside and a Luna moth just flew right by.

Christian: Yeah. It was like, broad daylight.

Ellen: Yeah. Which is weird cause they're nocturnal and they're not usually active during the day time, but one just flew right by us like right. Like over our table and fluttered off into the... Into the sky

Christian: I don't remember what we were doing that day, but it was a good sign.

Ellen: Yeah, it was nice. You know what I think we were doing for real though?

Christian: What's that?

Ellen: I think we were shopping for my engagement ring.

Christian: Awww.

Ellen: I think we really were because I think that we were at that Starbucks next to the store.

Christian: Yeah.

Ellen: So it was really nice. That's the Luna moth.

Christian: Thanks honey.

Ellen: You're welcome! Okay baby. That was my animal. It's your turn.

Christian: Okay. This week, on our first episode of 2020, I bring the koala.

Ellen: Delightful. How wonderful.

Christian: Yes. Scientific name, Phascolarctos cinereus. And this species was submitted by Benjamin Lancer. Thank you Benjamin. I'll be using information from National Geographic as well as Animal Diversity Web. So first I want to talk a little bit about its naming. So its scientific name, Phascolarctos, has two words in there and both are from Greek. The first one comes from Phascolos, which means pouch or bag. And then the second one is arctos, which means bear.

Ellen: Oh! Bag bear.

Christian: The species name, cinereus, is Latin for "ash-colored."

Ellen: Oh. Okay.

Christian: Yeah. And I think that's a little on the-nose for... Well, I'll talk about it later.

Ellen: Grey bag bear.

Christian: I meant like, ash being used as...

Ellen: *gasp* Oh no.

Christian: Yeah. But anyway, it's common name "koala" comes from the language Dharuk, which is an Australian Aboriginal language that was spoken in the regions of Sydney and New South Wales. And it comes from the word gula, which means no water.

Ellen: Oh, no water.

Christian: So I'll come back to why that is.

Ellen: Okay.

Christian: But I'll just jump right into the basic information. In terms of their size, they range from 23.5 o 33.5 inches, or 60 to 85 centimeters. They weigh around 20 pounds or 9 kilograms, and the males are larger than females. They can be found in a huge swath of Eastern Australia. They belong to the taxonomic family Phascolarctidae. Usually I like to talk about evolutionary relatives here, but the koala is actually the only extent species in that family.

Ellen: Really?

Christian: Yes. And the closest living relatives are wombats, which are in the Vombatidae family.

Ellen: Okay. Can see that. I can see a little bit of resemblance there.

Christian: Right. So jumping right into our first category of effectiveness, and I'm giving the koala a 7 out of 10 for effectiveness.

Ellen: Excellent.

Christian: And I had to think about here, what are the things they're supposed to be doing and how good are they at that?

Ellen: What are they supposed to be doing?

Christian: Rather than trying to look at them in a big picture. So first and foremost: not bears.

Ellen: Yeah, a lot of times people call them koala bears. Right?

Christian: Yes. And even their scientific name has "bear" in it. But they are not bears. They are marsupials.

Ellen: I don't know who dropped the ball on that, so hard.

Christian: I dunno.

Ellen: That's ridiculous.

Christian: Probably European colonizers.

Ellen: Thinking everything's a bear. That's ridiculous. It don't even look like a bear, y'all.

Christian: And for those unfamiliar, being a marsupial, they are a pouched mammal, meaning they have a pouch that they keep their young in. The female koala carries babies in their pouch for about six months and the infant rides on the mother's back or clings to her belly for about a year after that.

Ellen: It's so cute.

Christian: It is. And other examples of marsupials, kangaroos of course.

Ellen: And the quokka! We talked about the quokka.

Christian: Yes! The quokka! The worst parent.

Ellen: Is the koala a better mom than the quokka?

Christian: I assume so because I didn't read anything about homicide.

Ellen: Is a baby koala called a joey?

Christian: It is.

Ellen: Oh, I love it! That's great.

Christian: That seems to be a common thing with marsupials.

Ellen: I think that is the convention.

Christian: Yeah. I want to talk about their diet. This is a common known thing about koalas. They eat primarily the leaves of the eucalyptus tree.

Ellen: That is the only piece of information that I know about the eucalyptus tree. That's it. Like I have such a tight cognitive connection between koalas and the eucalyptus tree that those two pieces of information are inseparable in my mind.

Christian: I think it's because koalas are often depicted in media, and that's one of the things that is usually depicted about them, is that they're always eating eucalyptus leaves.

Ellen: That is such a strange, weird aspect of the koala for so much pop culture to really zero in on. Right? Like I feel like there's no other animal where they just really are hammering the point home of what they eat.

Christian: Panda is actually a good example, right? Because what's the one thing most people know about pandas?

Ellen: Oh, yeah.

Christian: They eat bamboo.

Ellen: Sure.

Christian: I think it's because it's their primary food source. Like not very many animals have that, like ONE thing that they eat.

Ellen: Oh yeah, that does make sense. I guess because it is so specific, then it sticks out more.

Christian: Yeah. Yeah. And there are some other parallels with pandas that I'll talk about here shortly.

Ellen: Oh good!

Christian: And by pandas, I mean giant pandas, by the way.

Ellen: Not the OG original panda.

Christian: Not the cute ones. I'm just kidding. They're both cute. Okay. So, talking about them eating and such, the first thing I found that I was legitimately surprised by was that they are most active at night.

Ellen: I didn't know that.

Christian: Yeah.

Ellen: You wouldn't think with their eyes being so tiny that they would be nocturnal, right?

Christian: Yeah, yeah.

Ellen: Usually a nocturnal animal has very big eyes, but the koala has little beady eyes

Christian: Yeah, they're teeny. And they get most of their water from the food that they eat. So going back to that name of "no water," that's what that's referring to. Even early explorers of Australia saw this habit of them almost never drinking water, and they thought at first, this thing obviously doesn't need water to survive.

Ellen: Oh, okay.

Christian: But what was actually going on as they get most of their water from the eucalyptus leaves that they eat.

Ellen: That makes sense. That was something that I talked about with the Arabian camel, too. How, like when water sources aren't so easy to come by, then you've got to get your water from different sources.

Christian: Yeah. And they'll even eat up to around two and a half pounds or 1.1 kilograms of food a day. That's a lot.

Ellen: That's very many leafs.

Christian: That's like over 10% of your body weight. And they have to, right, cause it's not, especially nutritious.

Ellen: It's mostly just like water and fiber, right? Yeah.

Christian: Yeah. Low protein, high fiber.

Ellen: Like the sloth!

Christian: They'll even store some leaves in their cheeks. Yeah, they have cheek pouches.

Ellen: Oh my gosh. That's very cute. That's very good.

Christian: So they have this special digestive track that lets them eat this very specialized diet of mostly eucalyptus leaves. And that's important, one, because difficult to digest otherwise, but also to most mammals, eucalyptus leaves are toxic. Yes.

Ellen: Poison. Don't eat, do not eat the leaf. Bad leaf. Danger leaf.

Christian: I tried to look into this a little bit. This, with humans, is mostly a problem with essential oils, with the eucalyptus essential oil where it's not diluted and someone uses way, way, way too much. Usually kids. But there's a lot of cultural thoughts around what eucalyptus does medically, but I couldn't find anything scientifically substantiated there. But that's okay. It smells nice, I guess.

Ellen: I want to say I've used like a shampoo that had like eucalyptus ingredient in it.

Christian: Yeah. And they even have specialized teeth for eating these leaves. So if you look in their mouths it kind of looks like they have a front teeth for just pinching off the leaves, and then the rest of their teeth is just one big molar basically.

Ellen: Whoa. That's weird. That's very strange. I would imagine that being specialized to eat something that not very many other things are going to eat, because it's poison, probably reduces competition for that thing. Right?

Christian: Probably. Yeah.

Ellen: Cause if nobody else was trying to eat it, it's all yours. More for you. Right.

Christian: They are their own biggest competitors I think. Cause I'll mention this again later, but a single adult koala needs a territory that includes about a hundred trees to sustain itself.

Ellen: I guess that makes sense when you have to eat that many leaves.

Christian: Yes. Something I forgot to mention cause, I guess maybe at the time I thought it was widely known already, but just in case: the koala is arboreal. It spends most of its time in trees.

Ellen: Where them good leafs are at.

Christian: Yes. They sleep for up to 18 hours. 18 hours.

Ellen: Like at a time or like...

Christian: That's a good question. I didn't look. But if they're mostly active at night, it would make sense if they were doing 18 hours straight and then up for... What is that? Four- Six hours during the night?

Ellen: You know, that would be consistent with their diet though. Because if it's such a low nutrient diet, they don't have a lot of energy to be wasting during the day. Right?

Christian: Yeah. So a lot like the sloth, you know, they're conserving energy. So I just mentioned how they climb trees and they have some very special feet to allow them to do that very well. So they have a total of six opposable thumbs.

Ellen: What?

Christian: Yes. So you might be wondering, but Christian, they have four limbs, how does this work?

Christian: Okay...

Ellen: So, their front paws. Each has five digits. Two of them are thumbs.

Ellen: Hold on. If you could see me right now, the little- it's the math meme where like all the math is floating around my head and I'm doing it trying to do this mental math. Four feet, five, what was it? Five...

Christian: Six total thumbs.

Ellen: Six thumbs?

Christian: Yes.

Ellen: Which feet are doubled up on thumb?

Christian: So it's the front ones.

Ellen: The front ones are double-thumbed.

Christian: Right. So the front feet, each have five digits, two of which are thumbs.

Ellen: Okay. So I'm looking at my own hand and I'm imagining that my thumbs are thumbs, and then my pinkies are thumbs.

Christian: No, not like that. So if you count your digits, your thumb being your first toe, and then your pinky being your fifth, on koalas on their front paws, the first and second toes are thumbs.

Ellen: So my thumb and my index fingers are my thumbs.

Christian: Yes.

Ellen: Okay. That's creative.

Christian: Right? And each one of those digits has a claw.

Ellen: Okay.

Christian: Now let's talk about their back paws. Their back paws also have five digits each, but they have one clawless thumb on them.

Ellen: Man, at least they have thumbs on their feet. Must be nice. I'm kind of jealous.

Christian: The rest of their toes are clawed. But, interesting about these toes on their back feet, the second and third toes are fused together.

Ellen: Does that even count as two toes then?

Christian: Yes. If you saw it in a picture, you would see why, because it's not the whole digit that's fused. It's about, I don't know, 80% of the length is fused together cause they still have two claws at the end of this fused digit.

Ellen: Okay.

Christian: And they use that to groom themselves. Like, as a comb.

Ellen: Huh. Well dang, that's cool. I wish I had that. I want to have multi-tool feet.

Christian: So yeah, so they have two thumbs on each of their front paws and one thumb on each of their back for a total of six thumbs.

Ellen: I didn't think that their sort of like digits were going to be so complicated.

Christian: Yeah. And so they're the designed so that they can grasp tree branches very, very well., and also just climb in general.

Ellen: Sure.

Christian: So yeah, that's a 7 out of 10 for effectiveness, cause I figured for what they're doing, you know, eating and living in trees, they're built pretty well for it.

Ellen: This is something that I feel, similar to the sloth, people look at the low-nutrition diet, they look at the low-energy lifestyle and they assume like, this animal is bad at life because it eats a dumb food and it doesn't move around very much. And they assume like, oh this animal is very lazy and very poorly adapted. But it's actually kind of just making the best of what it's got. Right?

Christian: Yeah, yeah.

Ellen: It can't, it doesn't have access to a lot of water sources, so it has to be eating a diet that's high in moisture, which it's getting from leaves. So since it's eating a lot of leaves, it can't be using a lot of energy so it has to sleep a lot. Right?

Christian: Yep.

Ellen: It makes sense when you consider the whole situation that it's living in, it's actually pretty well adapted to that.

Christian: Very much so. Yeah. And the reason I guess I didn't give it a full 10 out of 10 is because it doesn't have very many adaptations in terms of avoiding predators.

Ellen: Oh sure. Like not a lot of defenses. Right?

Christian: Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. So speaking of that, that's actually going to be one of my points for ingenuity, which I'm giving a 5 out of 10 for the koala.

Ellen: Awww...

Christian: So yeah, just feeding in the tops of the eucalyptus trees keeps them out of reach of most predators. Next up on ingenuity, I want to talk about how, they know which eucalyptus trees are safe for them to eat, because there are hundreds of species of eucalyptus trees.

Ellen: Oh! I hadn't thought of that.

Christian: There's a group of trees that are safe for them to eat, and among those they have favorites.

Ellen: Really? Aw! Like favorite species, or favorite trees in particular?

Christian: Species.

Ellen: I thought you meant they have favorite trees. "This is a good tree. I like this one."

Christian: No, like the ones that they think tastes the best.

Ellen: Okay. And does that vary from koala to koala? Do they have like, personal tastes?

Christian: I don't think so? I think it's more of a species-wide thing. Like they as a species have a preference for a particular species of eucalyptus trees.

Ellen: Okay.

Christian: And before I get into my last point for ingenuity, I just want to talk about one difference in the koala as a marsupial as compared to other marsupials. So most marsupials, their pouch is situated in such a way that the opening is facing the head of the animal. Right? So like, when you think of a kangaroo, the opening, when the baby comes out of that pouch, they are facing the mother's face, right?

Ellen: Sure.

Christian: With the koala, that is turned around 180 degrees.

Ellen: So the baby's facing the mom's... Butt?

Christian: Butt. Yes.

Ellen: Oh no...

Christian: And here's why!

Ellen: No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Christian: So the babies, when they're born, do not have the gut bacteria to digest eucalyptus leaves safely.

Ellen: Okay.

Christian: And much like the giant panda....

Ellen: This is fine.

Christian: Yeah. They must ingest a special form of their mother's feces to get that gut bacteria.

Ellen: Okay. All right. That's fine I guess.

Christian: So that's, that's what happens there.

Ellen: Thanks. Great.

Christian: But there's still nursing of course there. There are, I guess you would call them mammary glands that are accessed from the pouch.

Ellen: Right. Yeah. There's still mammals, right? They're still nursing their offspring.

Christian: Yes. So that's what all that's about to make sure they can eat the eucalyptus leaves at all.

Ellen: A fine diet of mother's milk and...

Christian: Everyone has that home recipe they love.

Ellen: Oh my God! Gross! I hate iiiiit!

Christian: I got that bit of information from the BBC, I should mention.

Ellen: Fantastic.

Christian: Because I saw it hinted at in other articles, but they didn't come right out and say it. The one I first saw it in mentioned the babies "will eat food that has passed through the digestive system of the mother." I'm like, wait a minute...

Ellen: Cause that still leaves it open to interpretation. Like does the mother regurgitate like a bird does? It's like, nope...

Christian: I had a suspicion based on the diet. I was like, this is sounding a lot like the giant panda.

Ellen: They were really dancing around that, huh? Like they really didn't want to be gross about it.

Christian: Yep.

Ellen: But we're not afraid to go there on this show.

Christian: Not at all!

Ellen: Gross.

Christian: So that's a 5 out of 10 for ingenuity. I couldn't give them any more points. I didn't see anything smart or intelligent in terms of tool use outside of that.

Ellen: Sure.

Christian: Last category, aesthetics. I'm going to give a 7 out of 10.

Ellen: That's about right, I think.

Christian: So they look very cute and soft, but that's about where it ends.

Ellen: I don't... I don't think they're that cute. I don't. It's eyes. The eyes are very small and I'm not about it.

Christian: The nose is pretty unique, I think.

Ellen: It is.

Christian: It's kind of like the- a wombat has a similarly shaped nose and face, I think. Their ears are pretty cute and fluffy.

Ellen: That's true. They do have fluffy ears and that's great.

Christian: But as we mentioned before, they do have weird feet, that can be off-putting.

Ellen: Oh gosh! Have you seen them like, walking on all fours on the ground?

Christian: Yeah. Cause they're, they're not made to do it.

Ellen: It's so weird! It's very strange. Their body is shaped in a very strange way.

Christian: Yeah. Uh, they don't sound cute. Go on YouTube. Find a recording of what they sound like. Not cute. It's like a low grumbling and...

Ellen: [very bad koala impression].

Christian: Yeah. Not cute.

Ellen: Wait, hold on...

Christian: No.

Ellen: Yes.

Christian: No.

Ellen: Yes. One, just one time please!

Christian: Not doing it.

Ellen: Pleeeeeease.

Christian: Nope.

Ellen: How nicely do I have to ask to get you to do a koala impression?

Christian: Moving on to my final aesthetics point...

Ellen: I did it!

Christian: It's enough. They smell like cough drops because of the oil in the eucalyptus.

Ellen: Oh my- what?

Christian: Yes.

Ellen: Okay. I've never met a koala, and this is definitely one of those things that I, I wouldn't have thought. What? They smell like cough... Do they smell like Ricola cough drops or like those weird like drugstore cough drops that are like, gross cherry flavor?

Christian: I don't know, I'm not a connoisseur...

Ellen: Of cough drops?

Christian: But, I usually opt for the fruity flavored ones when I require them.

Ellen: Gross. Those are the worst ones.

Christian: But yeah, I guess they smell like cough drops that... Whose ingredients include eucalyptus.

Ellen: Okay. I wouldn't call that a flattering smell. That's not a smell you want to smell like.

Christian: There are worse smells.

Ellen: That's true. There are worse things you could smell like, but...

Christian: I would argue most wild animals don't smell that good.

Ellen: Okay. I guess when we're looking in the grand scheme of things, at most of wildlife, yes. Cough drop is an improvement of sort of your base wildlife flavor. Except the binturong has the number one spot for best natural smell.

Christian: What's that?

Ellen: Popcorn.

Christian: What!

Ellen: They are- they naturally smell like buttered popcorn.

Christian: Hey, real quick.

Ellen: Yeah.

Christian: What's a binturong?

Ellen: It's bear cat.

Christian: Oh okay. I was imagining like a deer or something.

Ellen: Nah, nah, nah, nah.

Christian: So that's my 7 out of 10 aesthetics. Moving onto some miscellaneous info, starting with conservation status. They are listed as vulnerable, population decreasing by the IUCN. They were over-hunted in the 1920s and 1930s for their warm, thick coats. Probably not really needed in Australia, but I'm sure exported elsewhere.

Ellen: Well also Australia was kind of a colony, right? So they were probably just kinda shipping them back to Europe.

Christian: Sure. But they are now illegal to kill. And also, re-introduction helped bring them back, but their populations are still smaller and more scattered than they were prior. They're vulnerable to habitat loss. As I mentioned earlier, one animal needs about a hundred trees to sustain them. That's a lot.

Ellen: Yeah.

Christian: And the final point I will talk about is the Australia bushfires that are in the news for the past couple of months.

Ellen: Yes, please.

Christian: So if you're not paying attention to the news or just don't know, Australia has been experiencing devastating bush fires since about August. And there currently there are fires in every state, including some areas populated by koalas. So Australia has what they call a "fire season," but this year it started earlier than it normally does and it's also much more intense than it usually is. So the reason why I'm bringing this up specific to koalas is because there's been a headline floating around news media and also social media that koalas, because of these fires, are functionally extinct. I just want to talk about what "functionally extinct" means real quick. It means a species no longer has enough individuals to produce future generations or play a role in the ecosystem. The koalas have definitely been impacted, but are nowhere near being functionally extinct. So koalas are particularly at risk to the fires because of the intensity of the fires that are going on right now and also their lack of a way to escape quickly.

Ellen: That's true. They're not quick.

Christian: Yeah. So in many cases, the koalas will climb higher into the trees to escape fire. That's sometimes enough to escape, because eucalyptus trees are pretty big. But with the fires that are going on right now and how intense they are, it's not enough and can even cause the oils in the tree to make the tree explode.

Ellen: What!

Christian: Yes.

Ellen: Oh my gosh!

Christian: Yes.

Ellen: I didn't know about that.

Christian: Yes. And going back to how they don't have a quick way of escape, you know, they just can't move quickly enough to escape fires unlike birds or kangaroos.

Ellen: Sure.

Christian: Right. So another headline you'll see maybe is that 80% of their territory is decimated. But as of November 25th, a National Geographic article was posted that said the recent fires in new South Wales and Queensland covered 1 million hectares. And for those unfamiliar, a hectare is equal to 10,000 square meters. But, the koala's habitat in Eastern Australia covers over 100 million hectares. So that's way more than has been burned or effected. Now, that number, because this article was a month ago, I think that number is closer to 5 million hectares in all of Australia. But still, that's...

Ellen: Not 80%.

Christian: Yeah, nowhere near. And also just because an area has been affected by the fire does not mean it's destroyed or will never be suitable for habitat again, because the eucalyptus tree in particular is adapted to be in an area that experiences bushfires often. So they'll make a comeback usually.

Ellen: You know, I get why they wanted to really highlight the urgency of conserving koalas. Right? Cause it's like, they need the-yes, they do need help and they need conservation efforts, but they're a lost cause, as being functionally extinct might imply. Right? Like, that might imply there no hope for them left and they're too far gone that they're, you know, extinct in the wild or something. But that's not the case. Like we can still make things happen for them. We can still help them and they're still out there. They're still reproducing and making baby koalas.

Christian: Yeah, yeah. And it's not to say they are totally immune to the fires cause they're, they're definitely being affected. You see stories in the news about you know, a person saving a koala and then that koala going to like a hospital for koalas. We've seen that a couple of times, right, in the past months.

Ellen: Yeah. These stories are popping up all over the place of people rescuing koalas that- and they look so, they look so sad. It's heartbreaking! You see them like, covered in just like black, just soot from the fires...

Christian: Well, where their hair is burned and the skin...

Ellen: Yeah, the poor babies, they just, they're in such a rough state. But you know, koalas are kind of a national icon, right? Like regardless of whether you're familiar with Australia or not, you probably are familiar with a koala.

Christian: Right.

Ellen: You probably know about koalas, and you probably like koalas. So it's a good way to get people's attention by saying like, "look, this is posing a threat to koalas," because they're one of those charismatic species a lot of people like and find cute and want to help. So, like how we talked about with the giant panda, you know when we talk about conservation efforts for the giant panda, it's not just the giant panda, right? Like protecting giant panda habitats is going to have a domino effect where it's going to protect a lot of other species that share the habitat with the giant panda. So it's a net gain really. If you have to just use the koala as like, the face of the operation, then that's the way it's going to be. So like I get where they were going with it, but you know, kind of putting the urgency on the koala because people like koalas.

Christian: Yeah. So, I won't delve into this much deeper, but the issue of the bush fires in Australia has gotten very, very- not just important, but also kind of on the, on the world news, like the world's eyes on it because of how big the fires aren't, how intense they are. People have died, lost their homes. It's, it's intense. And it's also become a bit of a political issue with how individuals in Australia's government are reacting to it. But yeah...

Ellen: We are not Australian, so we- we're not informed enough to comment on Australia's political climate. So I don't think that's our wheel house, but we can talk about koalas.

Christian: Yep. So koalas just kind of are the poster child, in some ways, of the disaster.

Ellen: Benjamin Lancer, when requesting the koala, actually included some charities that are helping koalas on the ground in Australia. So the relevant ones that he included in his email were New South Wales Rural Fire Service, the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, New South Wales Wildlife Rescue Services, and the World Wildlife Fund has an emergency appeal centered around wildfires.

Christian: Okay.

Ellen: Yeah. So those are all resources that, if you are so moved by the plight of the koala and the other animals living in Australia that are threatened by these wildfires, those are all good resources for you to look into.

Christian: Very good. So that's the koala.

Ellen: Very good. Thank you for the koala. I kind of expected you to dunk a little harder on the koalas, because there's a lot of sort of negative discourse about koalas on the internet. It's like the sloth, where people set up this expectation for you to hate on it, but then you do a little bit more research, you're like, well, actually they're just adapted differently than humans. Right?

Christian: Yeah, yeah.

Ellen: They're just adapted to different situations, so...

Christian: Well, I think a lot of it comes from an expectation of what koalas are, based on what you see in the media. And then once you see some, you know, actual footage and whatnot of koalas, it differs greatly, but that's not their fault.

Ellen: They're meaner than you think they are.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah, a little bit.

Ellen: They're not friendly. Like you look at them and you see videos of people cuddling with them and loving on them and stuff, and you think, "Oh, it's just a sweet Teddy bear." Oh, they're not! They will get you. They do not care. Have you seen that video of the guy that gets a koala trapped in his car? That thing is mean!. It's like a, it's like a raccoon.

Christian: Yeah.

Ellen: Thank you. I know so much more about koalas now. I don't know if I'm better for knowing about their, uh, rearing habits. *gasp* Child rearing!

Christian: Oh noooo...

Ellen: Because it's... their rear. End.

Christian: I'm just, I'm thinking animals that have this kind of diet, this has to be a common thing. There's no relation between this and the giant panda, and they're also geographically very differently located.

Ellen: But similar diets, so...

Christian: Yeah. I'm guessing if we found other animals with this kind of diet, I'm betting, we would also see an association with that method of gut bacteria generation.

Ellen: I didn't see it with the sloth, so..

Christian: I'm gonna dig!

Ellen: Okay. Thanks, I guess I don't know how I, it's like you took like a species that I expected to be very benign and not have any unsettling content whatsoever, and you manage to find it somehow.

Christian: I hunt for it.

Ellen: You actively seek out something to make me regret all of my choices that has led to where we are now. Thanks.

Christian: Anytime.

Ellen: Well thank you darling and thank you to everybody who has listened to us. We love y'all. Thank you for joining us. We really appreciate your time. You can connect with us on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram by searching the title of the show. That'll get you there. Definitely, you know, follow us on Twitter and join our group if you want to be involved in the voting process for picking animals cause we're hoping that that's going to be a way for y'all to have more involvement in what the show ends up being. Right? Like it's, I feel like it's an opportunity for you guys to influence the direction we go in. I think that's going to be a great way for the audience's voice to ring through in the show.

Christian: Yeah. And if nothing else, animal memes.

Ellen: That's true. Hit us with your best memes. We love that. So if you have animal species that you want to hear us review, submit those to us either on social media or via email. I can be emailed at ellen@justthezooofus.com. A transcript of this episode and other episodes can be found at our website, justthezooofus.com, and to wrap up, I want to thank Louie Zong for letting us use his song "Adventuring" as our theme music.

Christian: Yes. Thank you so much.

Ellen: Thanks, we love it. We think it sets a good tone.

Christian: .......It does.

Ellen: Why are you like this? Anyway, byeee!

Christian: Bye y'all.