Koalas
spend the first four months of their lives inside their mothers' pouch and will
stay with the mother for about the first year. In their first months they feed
off their mothers' scat so as to ingest the bacteria necessary for digesting
tough gum leaves.
Koalas are often called koala bears. However, this is not correct, they are
marsupials. The misconception comes from the latin name phascolarctos, meaning
pouched bear. This goes back to 1816, before the taxonomy of this animal was
fully understood.
This photograph was taken at the Australian Reptile Park in New South Wales.