Researchers have discovered that koalas hug trees to keep themselves from overheating, with their study published in the journal Biology Letters.
Koalas live in relatively dry habitats, and so they prefer not to pant or lick their fur and use the evaporation of water to remain cool. Instead, as the large bodies of trees can remain more than five degrees cooler than the air, koalas are keeping themselves cool by attaching much of their bodies to the tree.
Lead researcher Dr Natalie Briscoe, from the University of Melbourne, said:
“Access to these trees can save about half the water a koala would need to keep cool on a hot day”
To test the theory, the scientists used thermal imaging cameras to observe the behaviour of 30 koalas during hot weather at French Island, Victoria, as co-author Dr Michael Kearney said:
“When we took the heat imagery it dramatically confirmed our idea that ‘tree hugging’ was an important cooling behaviour in extreme heat.
“Cool tree trunks are likely to be an important microhabitat during hot weather for other tree dwelling species including primates, leopards, birds and invertebrates.”