The home of Steve Erwin, Australia Zoo, is said to be the biggest zoo on the continent. The number of international species is not as impressive as in other European zoos (e.g. Valencia), but koalas and lizards are everywhere!!!

We arrived there on a hot afternoon, just in time for the koala information session where we were lucky to find out some interesting facts:

These fluffy creatures eat 7-8 different types of eucalyptus leafs containing certain toxins.

When a male is looking for a girlfriend, he produces a substance with a certain smell and makes funny noises. In this way, other males are aware of his territory and females around can choose him to have koala babies. The mating ritual takes 30 seconds. Quite efficient, isn’t it?

The koala babies are born after only 35 days of gestation and spend their first 7-8 months within the fur of their mothers, close to her breast. They can start eating eucalyptus after being immunized to eucalyptus toxins. If you want to find out how this happens have a look on Wikipedia and do not eat any chocolate before. Ha ha! Koalas become independent at the age of 2.

They are the cutest!!!

The kangaroos were very “petable”, even a little bit indifferent I could say. Everyone could touch, hug, feed them…they wouldn’t care.

We’ve also met all kinds of reptiles, from the crazy funny lizards that were walking all around the zoo having priority on all roads (the shuttle we took inside the zoo had to stop because of a lizard) to giant crocodiles and venomous snakes (among them the Fierce snake, colored black and yellow –which is the world’s most venomous serpent).

In addition to Australian wildlife, we also walked on a small island full of lemurs, in an African habitat with giraffes, zebras, tigers and so on. It was a wonderful experience!