NIBBLES

Nibbles the soft stuffed toy koala puppet.

Nibbles lives in the forest and eats the leaves from just a few favourite varieties of eucalypt, particularly the Red Gum, the Grey Gum and the Blue Gum. Nibbles doesn't usually need to drink because the leaves are so juicy. Eucalyptus leaves are very strong tasting and are poisonous to some animals, so it is very curious that Nibbles eats almost nothing else.

During most of the day, Nibbles sleeps in the fork of a tree. He wakes up as the sun starts to set and gets busy eating leaves. He is a very good climber and can hold onto the tree trunk very tightly with his strong claws. Sometimes he crosses the ground between trees. He looks a bit clumsy and funny when he walks or bounds along.

The cries of baby koalas sound like human babies, but Nibbles sometimes makes a deep bellowing sound. Koalas usually have one baby at a time. They are very tiny at birth and spend 7 months in a pouch. Then they are gradually taught to eat leaves and soon they get bigger and stronger and leave the pouch to cling to their mothers fur until they are about 12 months old.

It is strange that Nibbles doesn't have a tail, like all the other animals that live in trees. Some people think that the koala's ancestors didn't live in trees and therefore didn't need a tail.

The clearing of trees is a threat to koalas, and as their area of forest gets smaller they start to get sick. So it is important that we help the koala by making sure there are enough safe places for them to live.

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