PHILADELPHIA -- He's a picky eater and tough to live with, but also cute and cuddly and likely to win the hearts of thousands who are expected to visit him.
K'Bluey, a 12-pound Australian koala, arrived Monday evening for a brief stay at the Philadelphia Zoo.
The furry, 1-year-old marsupial is the first koala to visit the East Coast, where the environment and diet disagree with the species.
'This is his first trip, although he comes from a family of traveling koalas,' said Deborah Derrickson, spokeswoman for the zoo. 'His father, Waltzing, went to the Cincinnati Zoo from the San Diego Zoo.'
Koalas are native to Australia, where they feed on eucalyptus trees which grow only in warm climates. They are not bears, as is the common misconception, but marsupials -- mammals that carry their young in pouches.
They are shy, quiet animals that sleep an average 18 to 20 hours daily and make their beds in trees. Koalas were in danger of extinction in the early 1900s when Australian hunters captured thousands for their beautiful fur.
Only two zoos in the United States -- in San Diego and Los Angeles - raise koalas.
To satisfy K'Bluey's unusual appetite, zoo keepers will fly in 40-pound shipments of six varieties of eucalyptus leaves two or three times a week from California.
'There are 350 varieties of eucalyptus. They eat 20 and prefer only five or six,' Derrickson said.
K'Bluey's favorite tree, and his keeper from the San Diego Zoo, his permanent home, accompanied him on the first-class flight to Philadelphia.
Upon his arrival, K'Bluey settled in his specially constructed glass cage in the Carnivore House. K'Bluey's tree, made of pieces of wood with buckets of water attached, is set on a rotating platform that can be turned manually to ensure that the public can see the animal even when he is asleep.
K'Bluey will be on display from Wednesday through Sept. 2.
