In a minute or so, you might not find this as unbearably cute as you do right now (sporkist/<a _tmplitem="1" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sporkist/3336244089/in/photostream/" target="blank">Flickr</a>)

Apologies, because after you're done reading this, adorable baby koalas might not look so adorable anymore.

On a recent visit to Wild Life Sydney Zoo to test-ride the new Wild Flight experience, I discovered something super gross about these cute animals... and if I have to suffer through the burden of this knowledge, so does everyone else.

(It's not too late for you to stop reading, and carry on pretending koalas are cuddly-wuddly balls of fuzz and that nature isn't totally appalling.)

Baby koalas eat their own mothers' poo.

Not just any poo — a specially made, creamy, extra "wet" kind of poo, called pap. The only appropriate response to that is:

And this isn't one of those "facts" that's constantly repeated on the internet even though it's total B.S. (Ducks' quacks do echo, FYI.) Caroline Monro, Wild Life's main koala keeper, confirmed koala joeys go through a poo-eating phase when they're about five or six months old, and that it's as gross as it sounds.

"It can look really disgusting because the joeys use their mouth to stimulate the mother's cloaca to produce the pap," she told ninemsn Pickle. "And it's quite wet. It gets everywhere."



Nathan Rupert/Flickr

But while eating pap is gross (so, so gross), it's vital to koalas' survival.

"Pap contains special gut bacteria that koala joeys need" to survive on their highly specialised diet of eucalyptus leaves, Monro explained.

"The leaves are really hard to digest, they're tough and fibrous," she said. "So once the joey feeds on pap it allows them to get that gut bacteria into their stomach, so they can then digest these eucalyptus leaves."

If a baby koala isn't fed pap — if its mother is injured, or abandons her joey — it can't ever survive on eucalyptus leaves as an adult diet. Some rescue organisations can artificially feed pap to joeys, but this involves collecting the stuff from another female koala ("which is even grosser," Monro added, with a laugh).



Chris Capell/Flickr

Though koalas are one of the most popular animals at Wild Life Sydney, and at many other zoos around the world, Monro says it's rare to meet visitors who know about their, uh, unusual feeding habit.

"People are generally pretty grossed out [when they learn about pap]," she said. "Kids find it hilarious."

But she believes pap-feeding just makes a unique Australia animal even more remarkable – and no less adorable.

"It shows how they've evolved to survive in such a harsh climate in Australia and I think that's really cool," she said. "I don't think it ruins their cuteness."

It's true that it's impossible to ruin koalas' cuteness... even after you read these bonus unpleasant facts about them:

Koalas smell terrible



Jo Christian Oterhals/Flickr

Well, the males do, at least. While most female and juvenile koalas smell kind of like eucalyptus cough drops, the men throw off an odour that can politely be described as "pungent".

"The males have a scent gland on their chest they rub against trees to mark their territory and to attract females at breeding time," Monro told Pickle.

Koalas have chlamydia



Wayne Butterworth/Flickr

In some parts of Australia, up to 90 percent of the local koala population is infected with this sexually transmitted disease (though it's not the same strain that infects humans). Experts aren't sure why koalas seem particularly vulnerable to chlamydia, which can cause blindness and infertility.

Monro cautioned that koalas you see at zoos are highly unlikely to have chlamydia. "It's generally brought on in stressful situations in the wild," she said. "In the zoo industry it's quite rare if you have healthy animals and clean exhibits and fresh food."

Koalas' brains are teeny



Andrew Dyson/Flickr

Koala brains only account for about 0.2 percent of their body weight, one of the smallest ratios of any marsupial. (For humans, the brain accounts for about 2 percent of total weight.) Koalas' small brains may have evolved to conserve energy, or just because they don't need all that thinking power anyway.

"They sleep for almost 20 hours a day. When they're awake all they do is maybe move to another tree and then eat," said Monro. "So they don't need much brainpower or be super intelligent to carry out the tasks they need to survive."

The Wild Flight Experience is now open at Sydney Wild Life Zoo.