How do koalas drink?

A new study describes koala drinking behavior in the wild for the first time, finding that they lick water running down the smooth surface of tree trunks during rainfall — a phenomenon called “stemflow” — and do not rely merely on the water content of the leaves that make up their diet.

The findings, which the researchers said may be useful in koala conservation efforts, were based on 46 observations of koalas in the wild from 2006 to 2019, mostly at You Yangs Regional Park in Victoria state.

“I think the main message is that behavioral observations in the wild are very important to establish what is normal and what is unusual, and to truly understand what animals need. If we watch them carefully, they will tell us,” said University of Sydney ethologist Valentina Mella, lead author of the research published this week in the journal 'Ethology'.

The word Koala is thought to have meant "no drink" in one of the Australian Aboriginal languages. The question of their water consumption had long been puzzling.

“Koalas have been alleged to never drink free water in the wild, or to drink only occasionally. Drinking behavior has often been considered unusual and attributed to disease or to severe heat stress,” Mella said.

“Koalas were thought to gain the majority of the water that they require from the moisture content in the leaves that they feed on and to drink water unintentionally in the wild by eating wet leaves after rain, or when dew is present on the leaf surface,” Mella added. Reuters