Koalas' bellows boast about size
Thursday, September 29, 2011 - 03:50
in Biology & Nature
Koalas have a well-earned reputation for being dopey. Sleeping 19 hours out of every 24, and feeding for 3 of the remaining 5 hours, there doesn't seem to be much time for anything else in their lethargic lifestyle: that is until the mating season. Then the males begin bellowing. Benjamin Charlton from the University of Vienna, Austria, explains that they probably bellow to attract females and to intimidate other males. But what messages could these rumbling bellows communicate about their senders? Charlton and an international team of collaborators publish their discovery that the koalas are boasting about their size in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
