Individual Koala Bears can be identified by their nose says new research, as each Koala has a unique ‘noseprint’, just like a human fingerprint.
Janine Duffy from the wildlife tour operator Echidna Walkabout, which carried out the research, said: “A few years ago I was looking up at one Koala thinking, ‘Gee, I wish I could tell you guys apart’ and I just looked at the nose through my binoculars and I thought ‘Oh my God! They’re all different.’ I knew this could be important because I’d found a way of learning about Koalas without having to touch them.
“Up until then, Koalas could only be monitored by catching them and releasing them with a GPS collar. They are animals that get stressed easily, and wild ones like to keep their distance from humans. Catching and dragging them out of a tree to do research can be very harsh.”
After the initial discovery, Janine and her team have recorded the nose patterns of 108 wild koalas over 16 years, and identified that not one has changed substantially in that time.
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