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Koalas do have rather large and prominent noses. The reason koalas have large noses is that they need to be able to tell the difference between the eucalyptus leaves they eat. Koalas will not eat all types of eucalyptus, feeding on just 14 species as their primary food source, specifically, the subgenus Symphyomyrphus.

The other reason they need such a finely tuned sense of smell is that eucalyptus leaves vary in their toxicity levels, and koalas need to be able to differentiate, avoiding the leaves when they're at their highest toxicity levels.

Koalas are quite territorial, although they share trees in their home range with other koalas. they still need to be able to detect scent warnings placed on trees by other koalas.

Newborn koalas already have quite a large nose for the size of the embryo. It has been theorised that they have an acute sense of smell already when first born to enable them to find their way to the mother's pouch. They are completely blind at this stage, but it is thought they use the scent of the mother's milk on the teats in the pouch to find their way.

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13y ago

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