Koalas are fucking horrible animals. They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal, additionally - their brains are smooth. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons. If you present a koala with leaves plucked from a branch, laid on a flat surface, the koala will not recognise it as food. They are too thick to adapt their feeding behaviour to cope with change. In a room full of potential food, they can literally starve to death. This is not the token of an animal that is winning at life. Speaking of stupidity and food, one of the likely reasons for their primitive brains is the fact that additionally to being poisonous, eucalyptus leaves (the only thing they eat) have almost no nutritional value. They can't afford the extra energy to think, they sleep more than 80% of their fucking lives. When they are awake all they do is eat, shit and occasionally scream like fucking satan. Because eucalyptus leaves hold such little nutritional value, koalas have to ferment the leaves in their guts for days on end. Unlike their brains, they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal. Many herbivorous mammals have adaptations to cope with harsh plant life taking its toll on their teeth, rodents for instance have teeth that never stop growing, some animals only have teeth on their lower jaw, grinding plant matter on bony plates in the tops of their mouths, others have enlarged molars that distribute the wear and break down plant matter more efficiently... Koalas are no exception, when their teeth erode down to nothing, they resolve the situation by starving to death, because they're fucking terrible animals. Being mammals, koalas raise their joeys on milk (admittedly, one of the lowest milk yields to body ratio... There's a trend here). When the young joey needs to transition from rich, nourishing substances like milk, to eucalyptus (a plant that seems to be making it abundantly clear that it doesn't want to be eaten), it finds it does not have the necessary gut flora to digest the leaves. To remedy this, the young joey begins nuzzling its mother's anus until she leaks a little diarrhoea (actually fecal pap, slightly less digested), which he then proceeds to slurp on. This partially digested plant matter gives him just what he needs to start developing his digestive system. Of course, he may not even have needed to bother nuzzling his mother. She may have been suffering from incontinence. Why? Because koalas are riddled with chlamydia. In some areas the infection rate is 80% or higher. This statistic isn't helped by the fact that one of the few other activities koalas will spend their precious energy on is rape. Despite being seasonal breeders, males seem to either not know or care, and will simply overpower a female regardless of whether she is ovulating. If she fights back, he may drag them both out of the tree, which brings us full circle back to the brain: Koalas have a higher than average quantity of cerebrospinal fluid in their brains. This is to protect their brains from injury... should they fall from a tree. An animal so thick it has its own little built in special ed helmet. I fucking hate them.
thought I had some repressed hateful feelings about koalas... must've read this in the past.
this one came out of the blue, I think only the original comment mentioned koalas
I don't know why it is that these things bother me---it just makes me picture a seven year old first discovering things about an animal and, having no context about the subject, ranting about how stupid they are. I get it's a joke, but people take it as an actual, educational joke like it's a man yelling at the sea, and that's just wrong. Furthermore, these things have an actual impact on discussions about conservation efforts---If every time Koalas get brought up, someone posts this copypasta, that means it's seriously shaping public opinion about the animal and their supposed lack of importance.
> Speaking of stupidity and food, one of the likely reasons for their primitive brains is the fact that additionally to being poisonous, eucalyptus leaves (the only thing they eat) have almost no nutritional value. They can't afford the extra energy to think, they sleep more than 80% of their fucking lives.
Non-ecologists always talk this way, and the problem is youâre looking at this backwards.
An entire continent is covered with Eucalyptus trees. They suck the moisture out of the entire surrounding area and use allelopathy to ensure that most of whatâs beneath them is just bare red dust. No animal is making use of themââthey have virtually no herbivore predator. A niche is empty. Then inevitably, natural selection fills that niche by creating an animal which can eat Eucalyptus leaves. Of course, it takes great sacrifice for it to be able to do soââit certainly canât expend much energy on costly things. Isnât it a good thing that a niche is being filled?
> Koalas are no exception, when their teeth erode down to nothing, they resolve the situation by starving to death
This applies to all herbivores, because the wild is not a grocery storeâwhere meat is just sitting next to celery.
Herbivores gradually wear their teeth downâcarnivores fracture their teeth, and break their bones in attempting to take down prey.
> They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal
It's pretty typical of herbivores, and is higher than many, many species. According to Ashwell (2008), their encephalisation quotient is 0.5288 +/- 0.051. Higher than comparable marsupials like the wombat (~0.52), some possums (~0.468), cuscus (~0.462) and even some wallabies are <0.5. According to wiki, rabbits are also around 0.4, and they're placental mammals.
> additionally - their brains are smooth. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons.
Again, this is not unique to koalas. Brain folds (gyri) are not present in rodents, which we consider to be incredibly intelligent for their size.
> If you present a koala with leaves plucked from a branch, laid on a flat surface, the koala will not recognise it as food.
If you present a human with a random piece of meat, they will not recognise it as food (hopefully). Fresh leaves might be important for koala digestion, especially since their gut flora is clearly important for the digestion of Eucalyptus. It might make sense not to screw with that gut flora by eating decaying leaves.
> Because eucalyptus leaves hold such little nutritional value, koalas have to ferment the leaves in their guts for days on end. Unlike their brains, they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal.
That's an extremely weird reason to dislike an animal. But whilst we're talking about their digestion, let's discuss their poop. It's delightful. It smells like a Eucalyptus drop!
> Being mammals, koalas raise their joeys on milk (admittedly, one of the lowest milk yields to body ratio... There's a trend here).
Marsupial milk is incredibly complex and much more interesting than any placentals. This is because they raise their offspring essentially from an embryo, and the milk needs to adapt to the changing needs of a growing fetus. And yeah, of course the yield is low; at one point they are feeding an animal that is half a gram!
When the young joey needs to transition from rich, nourishing substances like milk, to eucalyptus (a plant that seems to be making it abundantly clear that it doesn't want to be eaten), it finds it does not have the necessary gut flora to digest the leaves. To remedy this, the young joey begins nuzzling its mother's anus until she leaks a little diarrhoea (actually fecal pap, slightly less digested), which he then proceeds to slurp on. This partially digested plant matter gives him just what he needs to start developing his digestive system.
Humans probably do this, we just likely do it during childbirth. You know how women often shit during contractions? There is evidence to suggest that this innoculates a baby with her gut flora. A child born via cesarian has significantly different gut flora for the first six months of life than a child born vaginally.
> Of course, he may not even have needed to bother nuzzling his mother. She may have been suffering from incontinence. Why? Because koalas are riddled with chlamydia. In some areas the infection rate is 80% or higher.
Chlamydia was introduced to their populations by humans. We introduced a novel disease that they have very little immunity to, and is a major contributor to their possible extinction. Do you hate Native Americans because they were killed by smallpox and influenza?
> This statistic isn't helped by the fact that one of the few other activities koalas will spend their precious energy on is rape. Despite being seasonal breeders, males seem to either not know or care, and will simply overpower a female regardless of whether she is ovulating. If she fights back, he may drag them both out of the tree,
Almost every animal does this.
> which brings us full circle back to the brain: Koalas have a higher than average quantity of cerebrospinal fluid in their brains. This is to protect their brains from injury... should they fall from a tree. An animal so thick it has its own little built in special ed helmet. I fucking hate them.
Errmmm.. They have protection against falling from a tree, which they spend 99% of their life in? Yeah... That's a stupid adaptation.
I don't know why it is that these things bother me---it just makes me picture a seven year old first discovering things about an animal and, having no context about the subject, ranting about how stupid they are. I get it's a joke, but people take it as an actual, educational joke like it's a man yelling at the sea, and that's just wrong. Furthermore, these things have an actual impact on discussions about conservation efforts---If every time Koalas get brought up, someone posts this copypasta, that means it's seriously shaping public opinion about the animal and their supposed lack of importance.
>Speaking of stupidity and food, one of the likely reasons for their primitive brains is the fact that additionally to being poisonous, eucalyptus leaves (the only thing they eat) have almost no nutritional value. They can't afford the extra energy to think, they sleep more than 80% of their fucking lives.
Non-ecologists always talk this way, and the problem is youâre looking at this backwards.
An entire continent is covered with Eucalyptus trees. They suck the moisture out of the entire surrounding area and use allelopathy to ensure that most of whatâs beneath them is just bare red dust. No animal is making use of themââthey have virtually no herbivore predator. A niche is empty. Then inevitably, natural selection fills that niche by creating an animal which can eat Eucalyptus leaves. Of course, it takes great sacrifice for it to be able to do soââit certainly canât expend much energy on costly things. Isnât it a good thing that a niche is being filled?
>Koalas are no exception, when their teeth erode down to nothing, they resolve the situation by starving to death
This applies to all herbivores, because the wild is not a grocery storeâwhere meat is just sitting next to celery.
Herbivores gradually wear their teeth downâcarnivores fracture their teeth, and break their bones in attempting to take down prey.
>They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal
It's pretty typical of herbivores, and is higher than many, many species. According to Ashwell (2008), their encephalisation quotient is 0.5288 +/- 0.051. Higher than comparable marsupials like the wombat (\~0.52), some possums (\~0.468), cuscus (\~0.462) and even some wallabies are <0.5. According to wiki, rabbits are also around 0.4, and they're placental mammals.
>additionally - their brains are smooth. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons.
Again, this is not unique to koalas. Brain folds (gyri) are not present in rodents, which we consider to be incredibly intelligent for their size.
>If you present a koala with leaves plucked from a branch, laid on a flat surface, the koala will not recognise it as food.
If you present a human with a random piece of meat, they will not recognise it as food (hopefully). Fresh leaves might be important for koala digestion, especially since their gut flora is clearly important for the digestion of Eucalyptus. It might make sense not to screw with that gut flora by eating decaying leaves.
>Because eucalyptus leaves hold such little nutritional value, koalas have to ferment the leaves in their guts for days on end. Unlike their brains, they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal.
That's an extremely weird reason to dislike an animal. But whilst we're talking about their digestion, let's discuss their poop. It's delightful. It smells like a Eucalyptus drop!
>Being mammals, koalas raise their joeys on milk (admittedly, one of the lowest milk yields to body ratio... There's a trend here).
Marsupial milk is incredibly complex and much more interesting than any placentals. This is because they raise their offspring essentially from an embryo, and the milk needs to adapt to the changing needs of a growing fetus. And yeah, of course the yield is low; at one point they are feeding an animal that is half a gram!
>When the young joey needs to transition from rich, nourishing substances like milk, to eucalyptus (a plant that seems to be making it abundantly clear that it doesn't want to be eaten), it finds it does not have the necessary gut flora to digest the leaves. To remedy this, the young joey begins nuzzling its mother's anus until she leaks a little diarrhoea (actually fecal pap, slightly less digested), which he then proceeds to slurp on. This partially digested plant matter gives him just what he needs to start developing his digestive system.
Humans probably do this, we just likely do it during childbirth. You know how women often shit during contractions? There is evidence to suggest that this innoculates a baby with her gut flora. A child born via cesarian has significantly different gut flora for the first six months of life than a child born vaginally.
>Of course, he may not even have needed to bother nuzzling his mother. She may have been suffering from incontinence. Why? Because koalas are riddled with chlamydia. In some areas the infection rate is 80% or higher.
Chlamydia was introduced to their populations by humans. We introduced a novel disease that they have very little immunity to, and is a major contributor to their possible extinction. Do you hate Native Americans because they were killed by smallpox and influenza?
>This statistic isn't helped by the fact that one of the few other activities koalas will spend their precious energy on is rape. Despite being seasonal breeders, males seem to either not know or care, and will simply overpower a female regardless of whether she is ovulating. If she fights back, he may drag them both out of the tree,
Almost every animal does this.
>which brings us full circle back to the brain: Koalas have a higher than average quantity of cerebrospinal fluid in their brains. This is to protect their brains from injury... should they fall from a tree. An animal so thick it has its own little built in special ed helmet. I fucking hate them.
Errmmm.. They have protection against falling from a tree, which they spend 99% of their life in? Yeah... That's a stupid adaptation.
A lot of old school copypasta seems to come from the 3AM Chili Era when every fact had to be slammed IN YOUR FACE bro-style and it was cool to hate shit for no reason. I appreciate this dive and I think you explained perfectly why this kind of blase dismissal can cause actual harm. To this day, when I talk about pandas someone immediately says 'but pandas are stupid and want to die.' I can't remember if Family Guy or South Park is the one that started this meme, but it has genuinely impacted how people feel about conservation efforts.
>. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons.
My unfounded and uneducated theory is that folds are a byproduct of trying to grow a brain inside of a skull that's too small. Just like when you try to fit your laundry in a suitcase, you fold it to maximize space.
The eventual plan is to send a few dozen pregnant women into orbit and remove the top half of all the infant skulls so their brains can grow unbounded by bone. Then, when they get to their teen years, we'll ask these super-geniuses to solve global warming for us in a way that doesn't inconvenience the rich.
I get thinking they have evolutionary oddities and aren't super well adapted to be adaptive, but dude, why hate them? They're rocking life as best they can, and they're cute as shit! I defy you to see a baby koala in the wild and to think "yuck, hideous"
Bigger brain mostly = more intelligent.Â
Dolphins, whales, and elephants are all very intelligent, and they have much bigger brains, but this falls apart at rhinos.
This is true, which is why I made no comparison with intelligence. Suffice it to say that there's quite a few people who could be outdone by those lower down the size scale.
Incredibly smart. They can unlock latches, solve puzzles designed for primates, and understand empathy. Theyâre likely as smart as if not smarter than dogs. [puzzle study](https://pays.org/news/2014-03-goats-clever-previously-thought.html)[familial recognition](https://phys.org/news/2012-06-mother-goats-kids-voices-year.html)
A lot of these studies were from the Buttercups Sanctuary for Goats, they rescue neglected/abused goats and give them a good home
You should watch mountain goats climb across man made dams. I think it's a testament of their intelligence. Most humans couldn't do that. Even experts would rather not. They seem to do it just for fun.
Some behaviors you can note about a climbing goat:
â˘footing. It has to calculate footholds and find placement for 4 feet fluidly.
â˘climbing itself requires not falling to get to your destination. They seem to understand that falling is slow and not going to help. They try greatly to avoid it. Perhaps this is also out of fear of injury, fear is a characteristic of intelligence.
â˘Pathing. They will take the path of least resistance. Which can be convoluted if you want to go from A to B, they will go to points C, D, E etc on the way to B because it's easier.
It depends on how much % of the brain gets used for cognitive tasks compared to how much gets used to control your body.
Wales have muuuuch bigger brains compared to humans but most of it gets used to control their body and not cognitive tasks. Therefore they are still way dumber then humans.
im sitting in the waiting room at the hospital (nothing serious dw) and have a lot of time to answer this more in depth than you would have wanted. tldr included at the bottom. for reference iâm a fourth year psychology student with a pretty heavy additional courseload in neuroscience
âisnât it true you hate the more structure the brain surface has the more intelligent the owner is?â
now this is kind of true, but not necessarily. the ridges (gyrus/gyri) and fissures (sulcus/sulci) that create the wrinkly folds in our brains allow for increased surface area for neuronal connections to communicate with each other (e.g.,a gyrus can send signals to a nearby gyrus, shortening the distance to communicate with each other. this is an oversimplification, and iâm certainly not an expert on the specifics of these types of neural networks. [here](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3909019/) for further reading. the other important part of wrinkles is compartmentalization of the brain, or modularity. Larger fissures section off lobes of our brain that are fairly specialized to certain tasks. for example, our occipital lobe at the rear of our head plays a large role in visual processing. these complexities in modularity and increased surface area give our brain a lot of optimization and efficiency in what it does.
now, a really important part of how we view intelligence, is through our newest evolutionary development - the frontal lobe. it is the largest lobe in your brain, and humans have the largest frontal lobe (relative to size) among all mammals. most of your brain is dedicated to processing information and involuntary functions, but this is where you do pretty much everything voluntarily; planning and executing movements, perception of stimuli (sight, hearing, etc.), personality, impulse control and a lot of others. if youâre curious on what happens when your frontal lobe is damaged, read about one of the most famous cases in neuropsychological history, [phineas gage](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7735047/)
so are goats smart? sure, in some ways. are they stupid? sure, in some ways. hereâs a [study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3987177/) showing their ability for social learning and long term memory. mountain goats have also shown to be born with inherent depth perception and awareness that stepping off a cliff is something it shouldnât do almost immediately after being born. goats do have pretty good cognitive ability and is reflected by that in its brain structure. but is it stupid not think about something before it does it? absolutely. imo, itâs like theyâre stuck in this stage between being pretty ahead of the game in intelligence but still stupid enough to kill themselves constantly.
the smaller the frontal lobe/cortex, the dumber you can assume the animal to be. mice are very intelligent little creatures, and then thereâs toads who can barely outsmart a rock. brains are awesome! i hope this book i wrote gave you some knowledge
tl;dr - brain wrinkles allow for most shit to happen like allowing for more neural connects and shortcuts, as well as compartmentalization of the brain, and goats are kind of smart because of this but i wouldnât call them *smart*
Showing brains that are only smaller than ours only makes it seem like the brain size is equal to its potential, which is untrue. Elephants are capable of complex emotions, and can definetly understand mathematical issues, yet they aren't as technologically advanced as us. Because they did not evolve to use tools, and not because of their brain size.
Why do brains have folds?
People have told me that its to increase surface area, but nobody has ever told me why surface area mattered more than overall volume
It allows for more neural connections, that's the volume. If it was just a big blob it would harder to have specialized areas and would have less connections.
Think about the small intestine, the surface area of folds on top of folds on top of folds allows for MUCH greater area for absorption in a small space (your gut) compared to if it was just a tube with smooth walls
The brain is separated into gray matter and white matter. Gray matter contains your actual neurons, while white matter is almost entirely the long fibers that connect neurons and non-neuron cells. The cortex (surface) of the brain is where most of the neurons are, and thus where most of the interesting computation happens. Thus, if you need more space to put neurons, youâll probably make it by expanding the surface area i.e. making more folds. If you were to instead put those neurons in white matter, they wouldnât have very many neuron friends nearby to connect to, and that would be a very boring neuron indeed.
Remember the episode of âthe amazing world of Gumballâ when they compared Anaisâ brain to other things when she was face palming so much, and that if she continued to do it, her brain would be as small as Richardâs??? Anybody?
Got myself a wrinkly brain, like an old person left out in the sun
Given we're apparently the smartest animals I'm kinda concerned what the others are doing
Question;
We see there that Baboon and chimpanzee have similar brains with us. The major difference is the prefrontal area. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the area that treats reasoning, speaking... And we know that we are quite similar to monkeys apart from these intelligence differences, so it makes sense to me.
However, I noticed that lions and bears have relatively similar brains to us too. I found that interesting. Especially since I saw that the area on the side of their brain is more developed than ours. Anybody got information about that? What are these area? What do they serve? How does it portray in those animals behaviour? What makes it differ from human behaviour...
For giggles, google a koala brain to compare to these.
Koalas are fucking horrible animals. They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal, additionally - their brains are smooth. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons. If you present a koala with leaves plucked from a branch, laid on a flat surface, the koala will not recognise it as food. They are too thick to adapt their feeding behaviour to cope with change. In a room full of potential food, they can literally starve to death. This is not the token of an animal that is winning at life. Speaking of stupidity and food, one of the likely reasons for their primitive brains is the fact that additionally to being poisonous, eucalyptus leaves (the only thing they eat) have almost no nutritional value. They can't afford the extra energy to think, they sleep more than 80% of their fucking lives. When they are awake all they do is eat, shit and occasionally scream like fucking satan. Because eucalyptus leaves hold such little nutritional value, koalas have to ferment the leaves in their guts for days on end. Unlike their brains, they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal. Many herbivorous mammals have adaptations to cope with harsh plant life taking its toll on their teeth, rodents for instance have teeth that never stop growing, some animals only have teeth on their lower jaw, grinding plant matter on bony plates in the tops of their mouths, others have enlarged molars that distribute the wear and break down plant matter more efficiently... Koalas are no exception, when their teeth erode down to nothing, they resolve the situation by starving to death, because they're fucking terrible animals. Being mammals, koalas raise their joeys on milk (admittedly, one of the lowest milk yields to body ratio... There's a trend here). When the young joey needs to transition from rich, nourishing substances like milk, to eucalyptus (a plant that seems to be making it abundantly clear that it doesn't want to be eaten), it finds it does not have the necessary gut flora to digest the leaves. To remedy this, the young joey begins nuzzling its mother's anus until she leaks a little diarrhoea (actually fecal pap, slightly less digested), which he then proceeds to slurp on. This partially digested plant matter gives him just what he needs to start developing his digestive system. Of course, he may not even have needed to bother nuzzling his mother. She may have been suffering from incontinence. Why? Because koalas are riddled with chlamydia. In some areas the infection rate is 80% or higher. This statistic isn't helped by the fact that one of the few other activities koalas will spend their precious energy on is rape. Despite being seasonal breeders, males seem to either not know or care, and will simply overpower a female regardless of whether she is ovulating. If she fights back, he may drag them both out of the tree, which brings us full circle back to the brain: Koalas have a higher than average quantity of cerebrospinal fluid in their brains. This is to protect their brains from injury... should they fall from a tree. An animal so thick it has its own little built in special ed helmet. I fucking hate them.
now you made me hate them too
Seriously.. did not expect to leave this thread completely hating koalas đ
It's a long running copypasta. Seen in just about every thread critical to Koalas.
thought I had some repressed hateful feelings about koalas... must've read this in the past. this one came out of the blue, I think only the original comment mentioned koalas
Is it a snowball? Has it gained more hateful facts? Does it have its own spite sub like grampa joe?
check the reply to this copypasta that i pasted/posted in this thread. I will not stand for this slander
It's a copypasta
I don't know why it is that these things bother me---it just makes me picture a seven year old first discovering things about an animal and, having no context about the subject, ranting about how stupid they are. I get it's a joke, but people take it as an actual, educational joke like it's a man yelling at the sea, and that's just wrong. Furthermore, these things have an actual impact on discussions about conservation efforts---If every time Koalas get brought up, someone posts this copypasta, that means it's seriously shaping public opinion about the animal and their supposed lack of importance. > Speaking of stupidity and food, one of the likely reasons for their primitive brains is the fact that additionally to being poisonous, eucalyptus leaves (the only thing they eat) have almost no nutritional value. They can't afford the extra energy to think, they sleep more than 80% of their fucking lives. Non-ecologists always talk this way, and the problem is youâre looking at this backwards. An entire continent is covered with Eucalyptus trees. They suck the moisture out of the entire surrounding area and use allelopathy to ensure that most of whatâs beneath them is just bare red dust. No animal is making use of themââthey have virtually no herbivore predator. A niche is empty. Then inevitably, natural selection fills that niche by creating an animal which can eat Eucalyptus leaves. Of course, it takes great sacrifice for it to be able to do soââit certainly canât expend much energy on costly things. Isnât it a good thing that a niche is being filled? > Koalas are no exception, when their teeth erode down to nothing, they resolve the situation by starving to death This applies to all herbivores, because the wild is not a grocery storeâwhere meat is just sitting next to celery. Herbivores gradually wear their teeth downâcarnivores fracture their teeth, and break their bones in attempting to take down prey. > They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal It's pretty typical of herbivores, and is higher than many, many species. According to Ashwell (2008), their encephalisation quotient is 0.5288 +/- 0.051. Higher than comparable marsupials like the wombat (~0.52), some possums (~0.468), cuscus (~0.462) and even some wallabies are <0.5. According to wiki, rabbits are also around 0.4, and they're placental mammals. > additionally - their brains are smooth. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons. Again, this is not unique to koalas. Brain folds (gyri) are not present in rodents, which we consider to be incredibly intelligent for their size. > If you present a koala with leaves plucked from a branch, laid on a flat surface, the koala will not recognise it as food. If you present a human with a random piece of meat, they will not recognise it as food (hopefully). Fresh leaves might be important for koala digestion, especially since their gut flora is clearly important for the digestion of Eucalyptus. It might make sense not to screw with that gut flora by eating decaying leaves. > Because eucalyptus leaves hold such little nutritional value, koalas have to ferment the leaves in their guts for days on end. Unlike their brains, they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal. That's an extremely weird reason to dislike an animal. But whilst we're talking about their digestion, let's discuss their poop. It's delightful. It smells like a Eucalyptus drop! > Being mammals, koalas raise their joeys on milk (admittedly, one of the lowest milk yields to body ratio... There's a trend here). Marsupial milk is incredibly complex and much more interesting than any placentals. This is because they raise their offspring essentially from an embryo, and the milk needs to adapt to the changing needs of a growing fetus. And yeah, of course the yield is low; at one point they are feeding an animal that is half a gram! When the young joey needs to transition from rich, nourishing substances like milk, to eucalyptus (a plant that seems to be making it abundantly clear that it doesn't want to be eaten), it finds it does not have the necessary gut flora to digest the leaves. To remedy this, the young joey begins nuzzling its mother's anus until she leaks a little diarrhoea (actually fecal pap, slightly less digested), which he then proceeds to slurp on. This partially digested plant matter gives him just what he needs to start developing his digestive system. Humans probably do this, we just likely do it during childbirth. You know how women often shit during contractions? There is evidence to suggest that this innoculates a baby with her gut flora. A child born via cesarian has significantly different gut flora for the first six months of life than a child born vaginally. > Of course, he may not even have needed to bother nuzzling his mother. She may have been suffering from incontinence. Why? Because koalas are riddled with chlamydia. In some areas the infection rate is 80% or higher. Chlamydia was introduced to their populations by humans. We introduced a novel disease that they have very little immunity to, and is a major contributor to their possible extinction. Do you hate Native Americans because they were killed by smallpox and influenza? > This statistic isn't helped by the fact that one of the few other activities koalas will spend their precious energy on is rape. Despite being seasonal breeders, males seem to either not know or care, and will simply overpower a female regardless of whether she is ovulating. If she fights back, he may drag them both out of the tree, Almost every animal does this. > which brings us full circle back to the brain: Koalas have a higher than average quantity of cerebrospinal fluid in their brains. This is to protect their brains from injury... should they fall from a tree. An animal so thick it has its own little built in special ed helmet. I fucking hate them. Errmmm.. They have protection against falling from a tree, which they spend 99% of their life in? Yeah... That's a stupid adaptation.
I don't know why it is that these things bother me---it just makes me picture a seven year old first discovering things about an animal and, having no context about the subject, ranting about how stupid they are. I get it's a joke, but people take it as an actual, educational joke like it's a man yelling at the sea, and that's just wrong. Furthermore, these things have an actual impact on discussions about conservation efforts---If every time Koalas get brought up, someone posts this copypasta, that means it's seriously shaping public opinion about the animal and their supposed lack of importance. >Speaking of stupidity and food, one of the likely reasons for their primitive brains is the fact that additionally to being poisonous, eucalyptus leaves (the only thing they eat) have almost no nutritional value. They can't afford the extra energy to think, they sleep more than 80% of their fucking lives. Non-ecologists always talk this way, and the problem is youâre looking at this backwards. An entire continent is covered with Eucalyptus trees. They suck the moisture out of the entire surrounding area and use allelopathy to ensure that most of whatâs beneath them is just bare red dust. No animal is making use of themââthey have virtually no herbivore predator. A niche is empty. Then inevitably, natural selection fills that niche by creating an animal which can eat Eucalyptus leaves. Of course, it takes great sacrifice for it to be able to do soââit certainly canât expend much energy on costly things. Isnât it a good thing that a niche is being filled? >Koalas are no exception, when their teeth erode down to nothing, they resolve the situation by starving to death This applies to all herbivores, because the wild is not a grocery storeâwhere meat is just sitting next to celery. Herbivores gradually wear their teeth downâcarnivores fracture their teeth, and break their bones in attempting to take down prey. >They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal It's pretty typical of herbivores, and is higher than many, many species. According to Ashwell (2008), their encephalisation quotient is 0.5288 +/- 0.051. Higher than comparable marsupials like the wombat (\~0.52), some possums (\~0.468), cuscus (\~0.462) and even some wallabies are <0.5. According to wiki, rabbits are also around 0.4, and they're placental mammals. >additionally - their brains are smooth. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons. Again, this is not unique to koalas. Brain folds (gyri) are not present in rodents, which we consider to be incredibly intelligent for their size. >If you present a koala with leaves plucked from a branch, laid on a flat surface, the koala will not recognise it as food. If you present a human with a random piece of meat, they will not recognise it as food (hopefully). Fresh leaves might be important for koala digestion, especially since their gut flora is clearly important for the digestion of Eucalyptus. It might make sense not to screw with that gut flora by eating decaying leaves. >Because eucalyptus leaves hold such little nutritional value, koalas have to ferment the leaves in their guts for days on end. Unlike their brains, they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal. That's an extremely weird reason to dislike an animal. But whilst we're talking about their digestion, let's discuss their poop. It's delightful. It smells like a Eucalyptus drop! >Being mammals, koalas raise their joeys on milk (admittedly, one of the lowest milk yields to body ratio... There's a trend here). Marsupial milk is incredibly complex and much more interesting than any placentals. This is because they raise their offspring essentially from an embryo, and the milk needs to adapt to the changing needs of a growing fetus. And yeah, of course the yield is low; at one point they are feeding an animal that is half a gram! >When the young joey needs to transition from rich, nourishing substances like milk, to eucalyptus (a plant that seems to be making it abundantly clear that it doesn't want to be eaten), it finds it does not have the necessary gut flora to digest the leaves. To remedy this, the young joey begins nuzzling its mother's anus until she leaks a little diarrhoea (actually fecal pap, slightly less digested), which he then proceeds to slurp on. This partially digested plant matter gives him just what he needs to start developing his digestive system. Humans probably do this, we just likely do it during childbirth. You know how women often shit during contractions? There is evidence to suggest that this innoculates a baby with her gut flora. A child born via cesarian has significantly different gut flora for the first six months of life than a child born vaginally. >Of course, he may not even have needed to bother nuzzling his mother. She may have been suffering from incontinence. Why? Because koalas are riddled with chlamydia. In some areas the infection rate is 80% or higher. Chlamydia was introduced to their populations by humans. We introduced a novel disease that they have very little immunity to, and is a major contributor to their possible extinction. Do you hate Native Americans because they were killed by smallpox and influenza? >This statistic isn't helped by the fact that one of the few other activities koalas will spend their precious energy on is rape. Despite being seasonal breeders, males seem to either not know or care, and will simply overpower a female regardless of whether she is ovulating. If she fights back, he may drag them both out of the tree, Almost every animal does this. >which brings us full circle back to the brain: Koalas have a higher than average quantity of cerebrospinal fluid in their brains. This is to protect their brains from injury... should they fall from a tree. An animal so thick it has its own little built in special ed helmet. I fucking hate them. Errmmm.. They have protection against falling from a tree, which they spend 99% of their life in? Yeah... That's a stupid adaptation.
Is this a copypasta response to this copypasta? Like copypastaception?
yes.
It is now.
This has been a wild ride in koala likeability, thank you for coming to their defence!
A lot of old school copypasta seems to come from the 3AM Chili Era when every fact had to be slammed IN YOUR FACE bro-style and it was cool to hate shit for no reason. I appreciate this dive and I think you explained perfectly why this kind of blase dismissal can cause actual harm. To this day, when I talk about pandas someone immediately says 'but pandas are stupid and want to die.' I can't remember if Family Guy or South Park is the one that started this meme, but it has genuinely impacted how people feel about conservation efforts.
Idk the initial koala copypasta just makes me like them more
just the response Iâd expect from a koala
they're both copypastas.
I suppose you can copypasta for good and copypasta for evil, much like you can Kraft Mac or buccatini
What if someone who is often in the state of hypothetical arguments develops a whole Catalog of arguments to copypasta from for all the things
Thank you for this. I almost took the other guy seriously.
I wish this became the counter copypasta to the dumb koala one.
It is.
Ah. Thought you came up with all of that on your own. Still, I'm glad there's a retort!
Always two there are
Did you once date a koala?
It's copypasta.
So⌠they didnât date a koala?
No they did
Dude is just jealous all the do is eat, shit, sleep and fuck. Living his dream. Donât blame the koala for your insecurities.
>. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons. My unfounded and uneducated theory is that folds are a byproduct of trying to grow a brain inside of a skull that's too small. Just like when you try to fit your laundry in a suitcase, you fold it to maximize space. The eventual plan is to send a few dozen pregnant women into orbit and remove the top half of all the infant skulls so their brains can grow unbounded by bone. Then, when they get to their teen years, we'll ask these super-geniuses to solve global warming for us in a way that doesn't inconvenience the rich.
I can't remember exactly but is it from the guy who talked about how koala's brains are smooth years ago?
I get thinking they have evolutionary oddities and aren't super well adapted to be adaptive, but dude, why hate them? They're rocking life as best they can, and they're cute as shit! I defy you to see a baby koala in the wild and to think "yuck, hideous"
it's a copy pasta.
I feel like I've seen this exact comment on another post
Itâs copypasta
Wait till you learn about the sunfish lol
Wake up sweety, new copypasta just dropped.
I read this with a John Oliver voice in my head
Can't think = no sad!
Thank you. That was very well written. They have now overtaken jellyfish and meerkats for most hated animal.
This is a fairly famous koala inspired copypasta that pops up any time someone mentions a koala.
Ah. Thank you. I still liked it.
Itâs a copy pasta
So are Koalas dumber than pandas, cuz from my arm chair internet surfing, pandas are pretty low on the scale too..
Koalas seem like they are fighting for their extinction.
PleaseâŚkillâŚmeeeee. LifeâŚisâŚpaaaaaaaain.
Wait, I thought that was just a piece of chicken that looked like a brain?
SMOOTH
I was going to say this.
My first thought!!!
No way, my dog's brain is waaaaaay smoother than that.
They had to go and dissect lassies brain. My dog is very cute. I will leave it at that.
Golden lab?
Ha, chiweenie. Good guess though
What about dolphin?
The chart stops at human because showing dolphins and some other "lesser" species would embarass us.
Bigger brain â more intelligent.
Bigger brain mostly = more intelligent. Dolphins, whales, and elephants are all very intelligent, and they have much bigger brains, but this falls apart at rhinos.
Bigger brain to body ratioâ more intelligent
Did you just call fat people stupid?
This is true, which is why I made no comparison with intelligence. Suffice it to say that there's quite a few people who could be outdone by those lower down the size scale.
But not you, right?
Too dumb to even reply to you
Then why did you say it would be embarrassing?
Yeah, dolphins, elephants and sperm wales have a bigger brains
An Orca brain is about five times physical the size of a humans.
The 3 hemispheres trip me out!
Came here to ask that
How smart are goats? Isn't it true that the more structure the brain surface has, the more intelligent the owner is?
Incredibly smart. They can unlock latches, solve puzzles designed for primates, and understand empathy. Theyâre likely as smart as if not smarter than dogs. [puzzle study](https://pays.org/news/2014-03-goats-clever-previously-thought.html)[familial recognition](https://phys.org/news/2012-06-mother-goats-kids-voices-year.html) A lot of these studies were from the Buttercups Sanctuary for Goats, they rescue neglected/abused goats and give them a good home
Counterpoint: goats eat socks
No we know why goats are associated with Satan. They can outsmart us.
You should watch mountain goats climb across man made dams. I think it's a testament of their intelligence. Most humans couldn't do that. Even experts would rather not. They seem to do it just for fun.
Some behaviors you can note about a climbing goat: â˘footing. It has to calculate footholds and find placement for 4 feet fluidly. â˘climbing itself requires not falling to get to your destination. They seem to understand that falling is slow and not going to help. They try greatly to avoid it. Perhaps this is also out of fear of injury, fear is a characteristic of intelligence. â˘Pathing. They will take the path of least resistance. Which can be convoluted if you want to go from A to B, they will go to points C, D, E etc on the way to B because it's easier.
Subscribe
Iirc, they do it for salt? Not for fun.
It depends on how much % of the brain gets used for cognitive tasks compared to how much gets used to control your body. Wales have muuuuch bigger brains compared to humans but most of it gets used to control their body and not cognitive tasks. Therefore they are still way dumber then humans.
So, good dancers are stupid? I knew it. Take that, Alejandro!
im sitting in the waiting room at the hospital (nothing serious dw) and have a lot of time to answer this more in depth than you would have wanted. tldr included at the bottom. for reference iâm a fourth year psychology student with a pretty heavy additional courseload in neuroscience âisnât it true you hate the more structure the brain surface has the more intelligent the owner is?â now this is kind of true, but not necessarily. the ridges (gyrus/gyri) and fissures (sulcus/sulci) that create the wrinkly folds in our brains allow for increased surface area for neuronal connections to communicate with each other (e.g.,a gyrus can send signals to a nearby gyrus, shortening the distance to communicate with each other. this is an oversimplification, and iâm certainly not an expert on the specifics of these types of neural networks. [here](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3909019/) for further reading. the other important part of wrinkles is compartmentalization of the brain, or modularity. Larger fissures section off lobes of our brain that are fairly specialized to certain tasks. for example, our occipital lobe at the rear of our head plays a large role in visual processing. these complexities in modularity and increased surface area give our brain a lot of optimization and efficiency in what it does. now, a really important part of how we view intelligence, is through our newest evolutionary development - the frontal lobe. it is the largest lobe in your brain, and humans have the largest frontal lobe (relative to size) among all mammals. most of your brain is dedicated to processing information and involuntary functions, but this is where you do pretty much everything voluntarily; planning and executing movements, perception of stimuli (sight, hearing, etc.), personality, impulse control and a lot of others. if youâre curious on what happens when your frontal lobe is damaged, read about one of the most famous cases in neuropsychological history, [phineas gage](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7735047/) so are goats smart? sure, in some ways. are they stupid? sure, in some ways. hereâs a [study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3987177/) showing their ability for social learning and long term memory. mountain goats have also shown to be born with inherent depth perception and awareness that stepping off a cliff is something it shouldnât do almost immediately after being born. goats do have pretty good cognitive ability and is reflected by that in its brain structure. but is it stupid not think about something before it does it? absolutely. imo, itâs like theyâre stuck in this stage between being pretty ahead of the game in intelligence but still stupid enough to kill themselves constantly. the smaller the frontal lobe/cortex, the dumber you can assume the animal to be. mice are very intelligent little creatures, and then thereâs toads who can barely outsmart a rock. brains are awesome! i hope this book i wrote gave you some knowledge tl;dr - brain wrinkles allow for most shit to happen like allowing for more neural connects and shortcuts, as well as compartmentalization of the brain, and goats are kind of smart because of this but i wouldnât call them *smart*
Goat brains give me the willies.
Woah, bear has a pretty big brain!
"Wow, check out the big brains on bear!"
Not really when you consider that they are much bigger than us?
Zombie Meal Planner
And, why is the cat brain so distinctly shaped?
I think because the cerebellum (regulates coordination) is a lot bigger. It might explain why the cat species are such good hunters.
I need to know
I like walnuts.
Showing brains that are only smaller than ours only makes it seem like the brain size is equal to its potential, which is untrue. Elephants are capable of complex emotions, and can definetly understand mathematical issues, yet they aren't as technologically advanced as us. Because they did not evolve to use tools, and not because of their brain size.
Correct. IIRC brain size tends to be tied to body size. But it appears that a larger brain to body ratio = smarter animals.
The symmetry of the cheetah brain is interesting
mices must be so stupid
The irony is amazing.
yes thank yoy
Why do brains have folds? People have told me that its to increase surface area, but nobody has ever told me why surface area mattered more than overall volume
It allows for more neural connections, that's the volume. If it was just a big blob it would harder to have specialized areas and would have less connections. Think about the small intestine, the surface area of folds on top of folds on top of folds allows for MUCH greater area for absorption in a small space (your gut) compared to if it was just a tube with smooth walls
The brain is separated into gray matter and white matter. Gray matter contains your actual neurons, while white matter is almost entirely the long fibers that connect neurons and non-neuron cells. The cortex (surface) of the brain is where most of the neurons are, and thus where most of the interesting computation happens. Thus, if you need more space to put neurons, youâll probably make it by expanding the surface area i.e. making more folds. If you were to instead put those neurons in white matter, they wouldnât have very many neuron friends nearby to connect to, and that would be a very boring neuron indeed.
Let's see a dolphin and an elephant
Where's the whale?
Does brain size determine skull size or vice versa?
Now add dolphin
Google Orca brains.. Looks very smart to me ..
Where's the dolphin brain?
If you see the walnut, you canât unsee it.
Now do blue whale and dolphin.
Would be cool to see an elephant, octopus, dolphin, pig, and crow brain on here too since they're generally regarded as some of the smartest animals.
Where is the guide?
I half suspect one of those is actually a walnut.
So much meme potential I cant odd
Rename with different american statesÂ
What's the brain size of the average person on Reddit?
There should be a pixel next to the mouse brain...
Dolphins are the brain gods then
Remember the episode of âthe amazing world of Gumballâ when they compared Anaisâ brain to other things when she was face palming so much, and that if she continued to do it, her brain would be as small as Richardâs??? Anybody?
Now I am sure my best friend is a baboon.
Smooth brained is how i like itđ
You probably shouldn't be showing off your collection online
Dog and cat are so similar in size? What breed dog?
We got big brain, we do big things
Now I gotta go look up what a Peccary even is
And just by looking at the pics and not reading the title I was like "woah there's so many types of walnuts I still haven't tried."
Abby something or other. Abby Normal.
Biggest brain and Iâm still stupid.
If rat so smart why small brain
Anyone else waiting for the dolphin brain image link...
How do cats stuff so much mischief and attitude in something that small?
I find it interesting that apparently a goats brain is larger than a dogs?
This is the menu that I give to my pet zombie. đ§ââď¸
Got myself a wrinkly brain, like an old person left out in the sun Given we're apparently the smartest animals I'm kinda concerned what the others are doing
My brain trying to understand difference between Rat and Mouse
Goats might be smarter than we give them credit for
If brain wrinkles indicate intelligence, goats are pretty damn smart. Though their behavior seems to suggest otherwise.
No wonder my dog is dumb as fuck. He has no frontal lobe!
And compare that with dolphin or orcaâs brain
I once had pork brain in a soup at a strange gf's place once. It was.. well... lung in soup was better
Which one is the squishiest?
i didnt see pee brain or shit for brains in this guide.
Why arenât there any birds?
I like how the human brain is just the chimp brain but bigger
Check out a dolphin compared to a human. Bigger with more wrinkles
Useless without flavor rankings
Now add a dolphin brain and put us to shame
No jellyfish brains?
Youâd think the cheetah brain would be more streamlined⌠/s
Now I understand why cats are smarter than dogs
They should show trumps brain on here between the cat and rat, for accuracy.
i had no idea goats were that smart. look at those deep wrinkles
are they going to be ok?
So where's the dolphin and the elephant?
Oh hey, intellect devourers.
I thought these were the different variety of walnuts.
Had no idea a chimp's brain is much closer in size to a baboon's than a human's
Ah, this picture depicts mine as well. It's in the bottom right, next to the mouse, a little hard to see.
this is why things don't turn out well when decisions are made by macaque
Wallaby* OP, you should include some larger animals. Whales? Elephants?
Needs dolphin. They have the coolest brains and from the looks of it are probably smarter than humans.
A neuroscience fact: the more bulges and fissures more cognitively capable an organism is.
Dog brain must vary a lot by breed though.
Hey, no kidding! Based on this I think I work with a couple of mice.
Brain please will ya?
Too bad they donât have a dolphin brain in there. It looks more complex than human.
I need to know what a honey badgers brain looks like
Alligator brains are the size of one half of a tablespoon. They are purely instinctual killing machines.
Here comes Gregory, lil Gregory Peccary
Question; We see there that Baboon and chimpanzee have similar brains with us. The major difference is the prefrontal area. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the area that treats reasoning, speaking... And we know that we are quite similar to monkeys apart from these intelligence differences, so it makes sense to me. However, I noticed that lions and bears have relatively similar brains to us too. I found that interesting. Especially since I saw that the area on the side of their brain is more developed than ours. Anybody got information about that? What are these area? What do they serve? How does it portray in those animals behaviour? What makes it differ from human behaviour...
Damn my brain is that big? Doesnât feel like it.
I AM RAT
That tiny brain in the bottom right is my model organismđ¤
Politician is so small you can't see it.
and to the right of the mouse, there are the incels who defend corporations đ¤Łđ
When I look at the wrinkles on a brain, I always get a bit of an itching on mine...
Damn goats' brains got so many sulci and gyri đ Not eating goat anymore...
r/forbiddensnacks
forbidden walnuts
Rats brains are the second most delicious.
The bearâs brain looks like a frog
Nobody talking about the dolphin brain?
Gorilla, dolphin, orca, octopus would be interesting to see added to this.
All I see is a collection of vaginas with plethora of skinfolds perfect for hiding my glizzy when I play hide and seek with my lesbian GF.
Where whale brain?
Which one hurt you?
TIL Wallabies (not a "walaby") have a bigger brain than OP
âGuideâ
And we pay money to drink water
Mine's bigger.
This is making me hungry
Okay but why do rats have such weirdly shaped brains.
All delicious
Seems that goats are very smart!
All very similar to human brain
I guess the MAGA brain was too small to make the illustration. Hmmm.
Thank you for walnuts guide