During our trip to Oz, Mrs FEEG and I took some interest in the fauna of Australia. Of course, it is well known that there are lots of nasty critters that will bite you and poison you at the drop of a hat (actually most of them are not aggressive and only bite if threatened.) and I have already talked about the penguins on the south coast.
While we did see plenty of kangaroos, wallabies, feral camels and some snakes while travelling, we did see a lot of animals at the Cairns Zoo, both in the day and at night, and the Sydney Aquarium. Most endemic Australian mammals are marsupials i.e they rear their young in a pouch, and most placental mammals are imported, either by accident or design. Hence, for instance, the feral camels that were originally imported for transport in the deserts and, when they were replaced by trucks, many of them were let loose in the same deserts, where they seem to thrive..
Of course, Mrs FEEG likes the cuddly animals and we got a regulation picture of her cuddling a koala. Mind you, she has a strange idea of cuddly and thinks wombats are cute! Wombats are, in fact, stroppy animals that attack without warning and they have big teeth and strong jaws. The young lady keeper who was giving a talk on wombats insisted on showing us her (very shapely) calf with a wombat scar on it. One nearly had a go at her while she was giving the talk. The missus also thinks Tasmanian Devils are cute. I ask you!!!!
Koalas, which are marsupials, are very strange animals, as they eat non stop for 6 hours a day then sleep for 18 hours, with the occasional toilet break and even more occasional bonk break. They only eat eucalyptus, which is highly poisonous, and they have very strange digestive systems that occupies a lot more of their body than most other animals, in order to process the eucalyptus into nourishment. They are also one of the few creatures, apart from politicians, whose brains have actually shrunk over the years as they spend most of their time eating and sleeping. Their football size head contains a brain about the size of your thumb!
The aquarium was also very interesting. They had some duck-billed platypuses there. These are monotremes, otherwise known as egg-laying mammals. Also lots of sharks and dugongs. Sailors must have been VERY desperate to mistake the latter for mermaids!
Finally, apart from kangaroos being fascinating animals, Skippy and chips makes a very nice meal!
Boadicea's Chariot 
Nice post FEG. Nothing wrong with eating, sleeping and bonking. 🙂
Eating sleeping and bonking? I should be so lucky. Nice one Feeg.
One of my friend’s nickname’s is Koala as he tends to, whenever possible, pass his time eating, sleeping, following nature’s routine, and bonking. He’s the only one I have ever met who can sleep 22 hours in a day. He also looks somewhat like a koala, especially the nose.
Good post, Mr FEEG. When I went to a zoo in Tokyo to see the kangaroos (my favourite animals), the boomer was attempting to bonk and the female had no interest in it so some kangaroo sparring was on order.
A wombat does that, it eats, roots and leaves 🙂
Christopher I should urge your friend to get his thyroxin levels checked….
Pseu: well, he is from Hiroshima and they do have certain issues there… He’s simply incredibly lazy, that is my opinion, as he passes life just fine when he has to do something with his time.