Most people think of koalas as fuzzy, gentle little creatures. We have them as stuffed animals, use koala pictures as decorations and accessories, and love watching videos of the cute marsupials. Koalas are downright adorable and gentle, spending 80 percent of their time sleeping. However, they also have an aggressive side, and when they fight, they get loud. A pair of koalas was caught on camera brawling, and the sounds they made were surprising. If you didn’t know the noises were coming from koalas, you wouldn’t believe it.
A Female Koala Defends Herself
Koalas spend the majority of their time up in the trees.
©TRossJones/Shutterstock.com
In a video on YouTube shared by Newsflare, two koalas got into a fight at a South Australian animal sanctuary called Kangaroo Island Odysseys. A tour guide named Gaylene took a video of a male koala approaching a female koala nestled at the top of the tree, which was out of mating season and highly unusual, according to Gaylene.
The climbing koala shrieks as it reaches for the female above, and they exchange blows, making screeching, angry sounds as they chase each other around the tree. The male koala keeps swiping at and biting the female, and she responds by using her feet and hands to push him down. Even while squealing in their high-pitched voices, the koalas look adorable, with their hands raised and cute faces, as they grapple on the ground.
After nearly a minute of fighting, the female koala continues to raise her voice (and hands) toward the male. Suddenly, he seems to lose interest and simply walks away as the female continues to screech at him. The female looks around for a moment, as if wondering where he went and what will happen next, but the male has apparently conceded defeat and wants nothing more to do with her.
Gaylene said about the fight, “I’ve never seen anything like this,” per Newsflare.
Other people also had a hard time making sense of this interaction and left funny comments about it. “I love how they scream bloody murder while flopping around like uncoordinated toddlers, until one of them literally forgets why he was fighting and wanders off aimlessly,” one person wrote.
Someone else commented, “It looks so funny like two teddy bears fighting.”
Why Do Koalas Fight?
In the wild, koalas are found in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and southeastern Australia. They live in various types of forests, using their claws to help them climb. They eat eucalyptus leaves, as well as leaves from brush, paperbark, and bloodwood trees, and resemble little teddy bears. Typically, koalas are solitary and inactive animals, although they can occasionally get into tussles like the one seen in the video.
When a male and female koala fight, it is likely due to disagreement over mating. After all, male koalas make loud booming calls, bellows, snarls, and screams to attract a mate and deter rivals. This is crucial because only the dominant male gets to mate. Koalas most commonly make these fighting sounds during the breeding season, which generally runs from August to February, but they can also vocalize aggressively outside this period when defending territory or when in distress. But they can also vocalize aggressively outside this period when defending territory or in distress. The situation above occurred at the beginning of the breeding season in August, which helps explain why the female was probably not ready to mate.
Breeding Season
Female koalas will only breed with dominant males.
©bmphotographer/Shutterstock.com
According to South Australia’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources, male koalas will move from tree to tree in the forest to see if a female is ready to mate. Sometimes, they will fight other males who try to get close to the female. In the case above, it seems like the female was rejecting the male’s advances. It’s clear the female koala in the video wanted nothing to do with the potential male suitor, which is why she screeched to get him to back down.
If the female koala had been in season and wanted to mate with the male, things would have gone very differently. She would have accepted his advances, and they would have mated at the top of the tree. Afterward, the male koala would stay close to the female and mate with her repeatedly during the breeding season.
When she conceives, the female koala has a gestation period of only 35 days before a joey is born. The tiny newborn koala (just 2 centimeters long!) will then live in the female’s pouch and attach itself to a teat for its first six months. As the joey grows, it will eventually leave the pouch, ride on its mother’s back, and be fully weaned by about 12 months old. Koalas are adorable, but you don’t want to mess with them.
They will defend themselves if necessary—and we love them for it!
