Koala around and its head has doubled in size. The eyes begin to open and fine fur grows on the forehead, nape, shoulders, and arms. At 26 weeks, the fully furred animal resembles an adult, and begins to poke its head out of the pouch. As the young koala approaches six months, the mother begins to prepare it for its eucalyptus diet by predigesting the leaves, producing a faecal pap that the joey eats from her cloacum. The pap is quite different in composition from regular faeces, resembling instead the contents of the caecum, which has a high concentration of bacteria.
Koala the middle to late Pleistocene, and possibly as early as the Pliocene. The fossil record of the modern koala extends back at least to the middle Pleistocene. Traditionally, three distinct subspecies have been recognised: the Queensland koala ("P. c. adustus", Thomas 1923), the New South Wales koala ("P. c. cinereus", Goldfuss 1817), and the Victorian koala ("P. c. victor", Troughton 1935). These forms are distinguished by pelage colour and thickness, body size, and skull shape. The Queensland koala is the smallest of the three, with shorter, silver fur and a shorter skull. The Victorian koala is the largest, with shaggier,