One of the leading killers of Australia's endearing koalas is a debilitating bacterial infection: chlamydia.⁠ Chlamydia is no joke to koalas. Surveys have shown that some wild populations demonstrate a 100 percent rate of infection, which frequently leads to blindness, severe bladder inflammation, infertility, and death. ⁠ ⁠ Treatment with antibiotics could create further problems for the marsupials, upsetting their gut microbes and making it difficult for them to digest the eucalyptus leaves that are a staple of their diet, researchers recently discovered.⁠ Adult koalas catch chlamydia just as people do - through sexual transmission - but young koalas can also become infected by eating pap, a nutritious type of feces, when it is excreted by infected mothers.⁠ ⁠ _____⁠ ⁠ #koalas #chlamydia #marsupials #science #biology