Koalas smooth brains

The koala was clinging to an old tree stag while stranded in the Murray River, on koalas smooth brains border between New South Wales and Victoria, koalas smooth brains. A team of students from La Trobe University noticed its predicament as they were paddling by in canoes. The koala could have swum ashore if it had wanted to—it was close enough, and koalas are not particularly bothered by rain or water.

Did you know that the koala is the dumbest animal in the world? According to an Internet meme , koalas have really tiny brains because the eucalyptus leaves that they eat are toxic and poor in nutrition. Poor koalas! That sounds really bad. I wanted to see what this Homer Simpson brain looks like, so I did a little search. In this blog post, my goal is to explain why this Wikipedia paragraph is highly misleading. In fact, I want to do more than that.

Koalas smooth brains

The age old question finally answered; are koalas stupid? There are lots of things that make koalas stand out from the rest of the animal kingdom. For example they have poor eye sight but make up for this with excellent senses of smell and hearing. At the same time, their most unique feature is their sub-par intelligence. Koalas have one of the lowest brain to body mass ratios of any mammal. There brains are also almost entirely smooth, meaning their cognitive abilities are few and far between. For example, koalas eat eucalyptus leaves. Naturally, they do this directly from the branches. If you were to pick some eucalyptus leaves off of the tree and hand them directly to the koala, it would not accept them. Similarly, they have no concept of what rain is.

It's not just their faces that make koalas cute, koalas smooth brains. Koalas are not the life of the party. Koala Conservation: While the threats to koalas are very real, there are also a growing number of organizations that are fighting back and working towards conservation of these iconic animals.

Scientific name: Phascolarctos cinereus Conservation status: Vulnerable Average size: cm Weight: kg. Early settlers miscalled the koala the koala bear, due to its resemblance to a bear. Koalas are stocky with large heads. The koala has a very small brain in comparison to any other mammal based on proportion to body weight. Their brains weigh only

While humans are known for their complex and folded brain structure, not all animals share this characteristic. When it comes to koalas, their brain structure has been a subject of interest and curiosity. The idea of koalas having smooth brains stems from the observation that their brains lack the prominent folds found in human brains. However, it is crucial to explore this topic in more depth to understand the reality behind this perception. To comprehend the intricacies of koala brains, it is essential to examine their anatomy. The brain of a koala is relatively small compared to that of other mammals. It weighs around 19 grams, which is roughly the size of a walnut. One of the primary factors contributing to the perception of smooth koala brains is the absence of pronounced folding in the cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the brain associated with higher cognitive functions. In humans, these folds, known as gyri and sulci, provide increased surface area, enabling more connections between neurons and facilitating complex cognitive processes.

Koalas smooth brains

Whenever we travel to Australia, we love to observe that iconic marsupial, the koala Phascolarctos cinereus. Even though it is becoming more and more difficult to see wild koalas in their native habitat, we have managed to track them down by following the amazing roars of the male. The koala has one of the lowest ratios of brain to body mass of any mammal. Even though koalas are dumb, they have survived because their brains use minimal energy. Using the least amount of energy possible appears to be a key adaptation to surviving on a nutritionally poor, low energy diet of toxic eucalyptus leaves. Scientists often use the ratio of brain volume to body mass or total brain volume to endocranial volume when they present encephalization data. But how accurate are these numbers?

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Koalas have one of the lowest brain to body mass ratios of any mammal. With this dataset, you can see it yourself if you use my notebook, you can plot it yourself :. Humans, all the hominids, are really unusual—they have particularly large brains for their body size. Koalas are increasingly susceptible to declining populations for several reasons. But with the rise of data science, almost any curious person with basic knowledge in programming and statistics can try to answer questions about this world, and even get some answers, on a Friday night with nothing else to do. They come down from their trees and solicit aid, or simply appear to satisfy their curiosity. Donate and enjoy an ad-free experience We keep our content available to everyone. Animals do coincidentally use humans to protect themselves, such as a penguin or a seal seeking refuge on a passing boat to escape hunting killer whales, or an injured kangaroo sheltering near a house. So I think this is perhaps why northern hemisphere researchers assume that marsupials are dumb. So do cetaceans. We admire animals that share traits or habits with us: the prodigious spatial skills of octopuses, the family life of socially bonded birds, the complex communication of cetaceans. Habitat loss is the number one threat to koalas. And when we see them lift their arms, we respond by picking them up.

The brain of the koala is about 20 ml in volume. The cerebral hemispheres are relatively smooth lissencephalic and reduced in size compared with other diprotodontids Haight and Nelson, , such that the superior and inferior colliculi, pineal gland, and even the roof of the third ventricle are exposed.

Your friend's email. Far from it. But when quantified in the right context, their brain is not freakishly small either. Mar 3, Scientific name: Phascolarctos cinereus Conservation status: Vulnerable Average size: cm Weight: kg. Brains, though, have more than one way of doing the same thing. Jess Taubert is a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Queensland who has worked with a range of species on functions like facial recognition , including at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in the United States. This expanded dataset with common names, along with my notebooks, are all available on GitHub. The average gestation period is from days, then the female will birth the joey. Though their brains may appear simplistic at first glance, koalas possess cognitive abilities that allow them to thrive in their habitat. As before, we built a statistical model for just the marsupials the red band in the right panel above.