Fearing the Marauding Ninja Koalas

A Mr. Southern (who shares part of my first name) just wrote a blog piece on a supposed earthquake prophecy of the fall of Rome. This gent claims that marauding ninja koalas are similar to predictions of a coming apocalypse: 

It really makes me wonder though why people are always looking for things to fear. As if there aren’t already legitimate, real-world threats right in front of us. No, we have to make a bunch of crap up about marauding ninja-koalas or machine-gun toting Tsetse flies or whatever other absurd thing generates the most hits on a site (I’m hoping that thousands of people are currently searching for “marauding ninja-koalas” so as to boost my readership)

Smile and giggle. Indeed I maraud at times but what cute koala ninja wouldn't? Mostly I work subversively and undercoverly to cause a disruption to our systems. Someone needs to take down those central banks, power-hungry politicians and bureaucrats!

P.S. Has anyone here seen the cutest baby koala at the SF Zoo lately? You really should!

The Importance of Trees to Koalas

I know that I occasionally mention trees but really I *love* trees very much. Especially my "home tree."

From a class project website:

Koalas live in societies, just like people. Each Koala has their own territory, made up of a number of ‘home range trees’ and ‘food trees’. The Koala spends most of its’ life in the trees. For safety, it comes to the ground only to move from one tree to another. These trees provide the koala with food, shelter and places for social contact. Each koala’s home range overlaps with those of their neighbours. It is in the shared, overlapping trees that most of the social interaction takes place. These are very important trees.

Thank you Home Tree for providing me with safety, shelter, food and social contact.

Searching for Koalas on Google

As a Koala, I need to keep the pulse on what human think of us. Luckily, Google allows us to see the most common search queries starting with "why are koalas..."

Here are the Top 10 results:

1) Why Are Koalas Endangered

2) Why Are Koalas Becoming Extinct

3) Why Are Koalas Important (Pshaw! Does one need to ask? It's because we're so cute.)

4) Why Are Koalas Not Bears

5) Why Are Koalas Threatened

6) Why Are Koalas Called Bears

7) Why Are Koalas Dying

8) Why Are Koalas in Danger

9) Why Are Koalas Always Sleeping (20 hours a day -- hooray!)

10) Why Are Koalas Lazy? (We're not! We just eat poorly.)

Five of the top 10 search results show a concern for our livelihood. How sweet. Remember to support your local koala today. Save Koalas! Wear cute t-shirts to spread awareness about our species.

Why Are Koalas So Cute? Eucalyptus & Evolution, Baby

From Wired Magazine:

Modern koalas are known for their cuteness, nearly exclusive eucalyptus-leaf diet, and the unexpectedly weird noises they make.

By studying the skulls of koala predecessors that lived five to 24 million years ago in the Miocene, an Australian team argues that evolution reshaped the animals faces to enable them to eat the tough leaves while maintaining their specialized communication anatomy.

“The unique cranial configuration of the modern koala is therefore the result of accommodating their masticatory adaptations without compromising their auditory system,” write the researchers, led by Mike Archer, a paleontologist at the University of New South Wales, in a paper in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

HT: My Tree

Sick as a Koala

Remember to love your koalas properly, otherwise they may end up in the E.R.

Cute Overload

Koala, the Thinker. HT: L. Ekkizogloy

Things a Koala Would Say

From McSweeney's a somewhat comprehensive list of Koala sayings:

• Eating leaves is fun!
• Climbing trees is fun!
• No, you're the cutest ever.
• Love me!
• Camus is boring. I find Karl Jaspers's philosophy much more enlightening.

I would add:

• I love bacon!
• Where's my tree?!

More on their website...

What would you say if you were a koala?