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Geological: present day -- well, calculated as 1998, but the difference is very insignificant
Koalas: The koala is now two years old, some koalas are lucky to live this long because of bushfires, poaching, dog attacks, deforestation, overbrowsing, chlamydia, or being hit by cars. If the koala has made it a full year on its own, the males will begin breeding season with older females. The females, however, still have a year to go before they are ready to start having joeys. -
Geological: Beginning of recorded history
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: End of last Ice Age
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: First primate homo
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Quartenary period, Glaciation in repeated cycles, emergence of modern humans
Koalas: No significant changes. Historically, koalas were hunted by the Aboriginal people of Australia for food. They were treated with great respect however. They believed that if you were to break the bones or skin a koala while feeding from it... the great spirits would come and put Australia in a drought. -
Geological: Great American Biotic Interchange
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Tertiary (Neogene) period, global cooling
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: age of mammals, flowering plants are abundant, Australia and Antarctica split
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Cenozoic era, Tertiary (paleogene) period, K-T mass extinction
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Cretaceous period, Laramide orogeny, huge reptiles
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: early flowering plants
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Jurassic period, Nevadan Orogeny, evolution of feathers
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Dinosaurs become dominant
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Permian mass extinction
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Mesozoic era, Triassic period, Pangea rifts, gymnosperms
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: final assembly of Pangea
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Permian period, insects take flight
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: early trees, formation of coal deposits
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Carboniferous (Alleghenian) period, Alleghenian Orogeny
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Carboniferous (Mississippian) period, early reptiles, leathery coverings evolve on eggs to prevent them from drying out on land
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Devonian Mass Extinction
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: first land animals
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Devonian period, Caledonian Orogeny, walking amphibians
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Ordovician mass extinction
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Silurian period, Taconic Unconformity, Jaws evolve
Koalas: no changes -
Geological: Taconic Orogeny, GOBE
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: early fish
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Beginning of the Phanerozoic Eon, Paleazoic Era, and Cambrian Period. Rising sea levels and the evolution of eyes
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: early shelled organisms
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Ediacaran period
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: early multicellular organisms
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Cryogenian period
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Neoproterozoic era, Tonian period
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Stenian period
Koalas: No significant changes -
Geological: Ectasian period, formation of early supercontinent (Rodinia)
Koalas: no significant changes -
Geological: Mesoproterozoic Era, Calymmian period
Koalas: no significant changes -
Geological: Statherian period, free oxygen in atmosphere
Koalas: most likely the koala has settled into a home range -
Geological: Orosirian period
Koalas: no significant change -
Geological: First eukaryotic cells
Koalas: Joeys already on their own are working on finding a home range. Hoping not to run into any dominant males willing to fight over their space. However they are still young. Females can't breed yet, but males don't stop themselves from trying. -
Geological: Rhyacian period
Koalas: its time to say bye to mum. Koalas will go find their own home ranges, the trees they like the most, and the males will even start to look for mates if the season is right. -
Geological: Precambrian (Proterozoic), Paleoproterozoic, Siderian period, Ediacara Fauna
Koalas: In the wild, there is a high chance that by now the mother koala has mated again. Once she knows her pouch is going to be prepared for a new joey, she starts to push her bub away. Acting aggressive and even abandoning the bub. But this is normal for them. All children must go on at some point. However, if the mum doesn't mate, the joeys can stay until they are just about a year -
Geological: Neoarchian
Koalas: becoming more independent as they learn to climb and get leaf all on their own, getting too big to ride on mom's back -
Geological: Mesoarchian
Koalas: Starting to leave the pouch for longer periods of time and begin to ride on their mother's backs. They've also nearly doubled in size because of the pap and are able to eat leaf, though they still nurse. -
Geological: Paleoarchean era has begun
Koalas: The joeys have started peaking their heads out to pap feeding, the only way for the koalas to alter their gut bacteria in order to eat eucalyptus. -
Geological: Oldest chemical evidence of life
Koalas: By now the eyes and ears have nearly finished developing, but the bub is staying safe in their mother's pouch. Only peeking out to see the world. -
Geologically: It is the Precambrian (Archean) Eon, Eoarchian era, and the RNA world is thriving
Koalas: nothing much has changed within the month, they are just developing in mum's pouch, nursing on milk.
(Photo of a rescued joey, still in need of its mum. The Joey will need to be hand-reared by a volunteer.) -
In geologic time, the oldest known earth rocks are forming. But relatively, for koalas, they still have no fur and their eyes and ears have not developed. -
Geologically: Precambrian, Hadean, origin of earth, moon, and oceans.
Metaphorically: Koala joeys have roughly 30 days of gestation before being born and crawling to their mother's pouch. At this age they are as small as a jelly bean.