Snoozing Koala and Teenaged Joey

This photo of the koala is another of my favorite photos from Australia. I took it at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney. Since koalas are nocturnal creatures,  they sleep during the day, even when they have hundreds of admirers filing by, apparently. This photo is now my screen saver. This isn't the koala I held; that one was a little girl.

Koalas aren't bears, by the way, although most of us have been taught to call them "koala bears." The zoo guide was careful to make this point, explaining that koalas are marsupials, like kangaroos. They, too, have a pouch for carrying their immature newborns.

Back to kangaroos for a minute: Our tour guide in the Blue Mountains outside Sydney said kangaroos are a tad unfeeling when they decide Junior needs to give up the pouch and get his own apartment, as it were. The mother kangaroo simply closes up shop by tightening her pouch so Joey can't get into it any more. She does this without warning, so Joey is perplexed and heartbroken for a few days, then he packs up his ditty bag and begins life on his own. Mom, meanwhile, gets the current embryo in her womb to speed up its development so it can occupy the pouch soon. Apparently female kangaroos like to be kept barefoot and pregnant.

In this photo you can see that young Joseph is obviously getting too big for the pouch and should be ashamed of himself for using it still. I guess we're all guilty of taking the bus rather than walking, given the opportunity, though.