quality:corruption, linguistic:translation, structural:scholar_edition
Cultural significance

The koala is known worldwide and is a major draw for Australian zoos and wildlife parks. It has been featured in popular culture and as soft toys. It benefited the Australian tourism industry by over $1 billion in 1998, and subsequently grown. Its international popularly rose after World War II, when tourism increased and the animals were exported to zoos overseas. In 1997, about 75% of European and Japanese tourists placed the koala at the top of their list of animals to see. According to biologist Stephen Jackson: "If you were to take a straw poll of the animal most closely associated with Australia, it's a fair bet that the koala would come out marginally in front of the kangaroo". Factors that contribute to the koala's enduring popularity include its teddy bear -like appearance with childlike body proportions.

The koala features in the Dreamtime stories and mythology of Indigenous Australians. The Tharawal people believed that the animal helped them get to Australia by rowing the boat. Another myth tells of a tribe that killed a koala and used its long intestines to create a bridge for people from other parts of the world. How the koala lost its tail is the subject of many tales. In one, a kangaroo cuts it off to punish the koala for uncouth behaviour. Tribes in Queensland and Victoria regarded the koala as a wise animal that gave valuable guidance. Bidjara -speaking people credited the koala for making trees grow in their arid lands. The animal is depicted in rock carvings, though less so than some other species.

Early European settlers in Australia considered the koala to be a creeping sloth -like animal with a "fierce and menacing look". At the turn of the 20th century, the koala's reputation took a positive turn. It appears in Ethel Pedley 's 1899 book Dot and the Kangaroo, as the "funny native bear". Artist Norman Lindsay depicted a more anthropomorphic koala in The Bulletin cartoons, starting in 1904. This character also appeared as Bunyip Bluegum in Lindsay's 1918 book The Magic Pudding. The most well known fictional koala is Blinky Bill. Created by Dorothy Wall in 1933, the character appeared in books, films, TV series, merchandise, and a 1986 environmental song by John Williamson. The koala first appeared on an Australian stamp in 1930.

The song "Ode to a Koala Bear" appears on the B-side of the 1983 Paul McCartney / Michael Jackson duet single Say Say Say. A koala is the main character in animated cartoons in the early 1980s: Hanna-Barbera 's The Kwicky Koala Show and Nippon Animation 's Noozles. Food products shaped like the koala include the Caramello Koala chocolate bar and the bite-sized cookie snack Koala's March. Dadswells Bridge in Victoria features a tourist complex shaped like a giant koala and the Queensland Reds rugby team has a koala as its icon.