Animal Diaries Archive

Joey Play Time

27 April 2007

When visitors come to the zoo and see koalas, they will generally find them asleep most of the time. Koalas spend most of the day asleep or resting to combat the heat and to conserve energy. When you see them moving around during the day, they move so slowly that it's hard to believe they have any energy at all. But as soon as the sun goes down, it's a different story. The koalas come to life.

While the adults will travel to change trees and to find food, our young koalas will become playful and interact with each other. The infants (between 11 months to 18 months old) will scamper along the tree branches and jump around and chase each other on the ground. This playing time strengthens their muscles and improves their climbing and jumping ability, which are all vital survival skills for wild koalas.

So the next morning, when we find them looking all disheveled and plain worn out, we can sure understand why!