Koalas smooth brains

Scientific name: Phascolarctos cinereus Conservation status: Vulnerable Average size: cm Weight: kg.

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.

Koalas smooth brains

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. I want to demonstrate that you can figure it out yourself. It was not too many years ago when only university researchers could have access to the resource needed to mess around with brain data. 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. In this notebook produced with a popular software called Jupyter , you can see me load a brain size dataset, ask myself questions about koalas, and answer them with short programs written in the R programming language. Some plots are interactive so you can check out the brain size of your favorite animals. The point is that everything I say in this post come from these rather simple notebooks. My personal gratitude for these wonderful people:.

They also contain little to no calories and are quite literally poisonous.

The common misconception is that koalas are dumb because the koala brain is tiny. Marsupials, as a whole, tend to have smaller brains than other mammals, and scientists do not use the brain-to-body ratio as an intelligence parameter. Yes, it is one of the smallest brains within mammals, but Koalas are not lazy and slow because of that but most likely because of their nutrition-poor diet of otherwise toxic eucalyptus leaves. Koalas are endearing marsupials native to Australia, known for their cute appearance. As one of the most iconic Australian animals, understanding the koala brain is interesting even helpful if we want to help their conservation.

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. This reduction in cortical size and therefore cerebral metabolism may be an adaptation to the poor quality of their diet. The functional areas of the cerebral cortex have not been assessed physiologically, so the labelling of S1, V1 and Au1 in the accompanying illustrations is putative based on cellular patterns in neuronal Nissl stained specimens from the Nelson collection. The cerebellum is foliated, but the cerebellar hemispheres are not as elaborate as in other diprotodontids, reflecting poor development of the cerebro ponto cerebellar circuitry. In Possums and Opossums: Studies in Evolution ed. Sydney: Surrey Beatty and Sons.

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? Eutherians refers to all the mammals that have a placenta; that is, all mammals except monotremes and marsupials. It may be a result of studying a live animal and a fresh dead one, rather than chemically preserved brains.

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It will learn to climb and begin to spend more and more time away from the mother, and at 12 months will be fully weaned. And yet their brains not only don't have a neocortex, but are much smaller and smoother than those of mammals. As for koalas, they have some traits that could be perceived as signs of lower intelligence and some that may indicate cognitive abilities: Perceived signs of lower intelligence:. As soon as the mother becomes pregnant again, the bond with her previous joey is severed. A true marvel of evolution, is the lemming. Diet: Koalas have a diet of mainly eucalyptus leaves, but can sometimes be found in other trees such as acacia, melaleuca, and more. Even their social system requires minimal engagement. 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. There are lots of things that make koalas stand out from the rest of the animal kingdom. Scientific name: Phascolarctos cinereus Conservation status: Vulnerable Average size: cm Weight: kg. Remove ads. Similarly, they have no concept of what rain is. I want to demonstrate that you can figure it out yourself.

While humans are known for their complex and folded brain structure, not all animals share this characteristic.

It is also their tendency to lift their arms towards human rescuers when on the ground. It's not easy for anyone to work out how to get around an unexpected sheet of invisible nothingness. I just didn't notice it because I was asleep. Other species, like many sharks or crocodiles, have adopted a strategy that has allowed them to survive unchanged over millennia of changing conditions. Koala Facts. Human actually ranks th! Humans are a bit obsessed with brain size—with anything, actually, that we think separates us from other animals, such as tool use, language and sociality. Once on board, it anticipated that the canoe would get near enough to the shore for it to hop off. Credit: Danielle Clode. Lemmings, which stand at a mighty 6 inches long, often fight cats, birds of prey etc. Your message to the editors. Neither your address nor the recipient's address will be used for any other purpose.