SPRINGTIME NEAR FOR THE KOALA SERENADE: 2/4: Koala: A Natural History and an Uncertain Future by Danielle Clode (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 2 September 2024
⏱️ 7 minutes
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Koala-Natural-History-Uncertain-Future/dp/1324036834
Koalas regularly appeared in Australian biologist Danielle Clode’s backyard, but it was only when a bushfire threatened that she truly paid them attention. She soon realized how much she had to learn about these complex and mysterious animals.
In vivid, descriptive prose, Clode embarks on a delightful and surprising journey through evolutionary biology, natural history, and ecology to understand where these enigmatic animals came from and what their future may hold. She begins her search with the fossils of ancient giant koalas, delving into why the modern koala has become the lone survivor of a once-diverse family of uniquely Australian marsupials.
Koala investigates the remarkable physiology of these charismatic creatures. Born the size of tiny “jellybeans,” joeys face an uphill battle, from crawling into their mother’s pouch to being weaned onto a toxic diet of gum-tree leaves, the koalas’ single source of food.
Clode explores the complex relationship and unexpected connections between this endearing species and humans. She explains how koalas are simultaneously threatened with extinction in some areas due to disease, climate change, and increasing wildfires, while overpopulating forests in other parts of the country.
Deeply researched and filled with wonder, Koala is both a tender and inquisitive paean to a species unlike any other and a call to ensure its survival.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a |
| 0:05.0 | CBS I in the world. I'm John Batsw with Professor Daniel Clode. Her new book is |
| 0:09.2 | Kowala, a natural history and an uncertain future. This is a marsupial and there are many different kinds of marsupials. |
| 0:17.0 | There's a family tree. Kual is all by itself. It's phylogetically sterile. See I learned it professor what does that mean? |
| 0:25.0 | That's an interesting phrase. I mean the idea is that they're the they're the |
| 0:30.4 | last of their line so a little bit like humans we used to have a whole |
| 0:35.4 | people of other relatives in the Homo family or the Homo group of species but we're |
| 0:42.4 | the last ones left doing it in the Neandero group of species but we're the last ones left and the neandotols have tied out lots of other |
| 0:48.2 | homo species have died out as well and koalas are in the same camp. So they had lots of other cousins around them at one |
| 0:55.8 | point, but now there's only one species left. So it's a sort of the end of the line for them. |
| 1:01.6 | Once upon a time. |
| 1:02.7 | So go ahead. |
| 1:05.7 | Oh no, unless we happen to speceate and split into two. |
| 1:08.9 | I don't know how that might happen like. |
| 1:10.4 | Not till we get to Mars, Daniel. |
| 1:13.0 | Once upon a time, the wombats were as big as grizzly bears. |
| 1:19.0 | Were koalas much bigger at that scale once upon a time? |
| 1:24.0 | Yeah, so that was one of the really interesting things I found when I was doing my research was that |
| 1:30.0 | you know there's a lot of debate people love finding giant versions of animals and in the megaphonal period, |
| 1:36.1 | the last Ice Age, which you'll be familiar with from the woolly mammoths and the, you know, |
| 1:41.3 | giant sloths and those sorts of things Australia didn't have those |
| 1:44.5 | species because we don't have those types of animals we had giant marsupials |
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