Australia. Also 9 coola(h, kool-la. [Native name: given as kūlla in Dippil, kūlā on George’s River (Ridley Kámilarói, pp. 64, 104); koala was perhaps orig. a misreading of koola. Hence the name of the town Coolah in New South Wales.] An arboreal marsupial mammal of Australia (Phascolarctos cinereus), of an ashen-grey color, small, clumsy, and somewhat resembling a sloth in form, and feeding on the leaves of eucalyptus. Also called the Australian or Native Bear.
1808. Home, in Phil. Trans., XCVIII. 305. The koala is another species of the wombat. The natives call it the koala wombat; it … was first brought to Port Jackson in August, 1803.
1813. Hist. N. S. Wales (1818), 432 (Morris). The koolah or sloth is likewise an animal of the opossum species, with a false belly.
1827. Cunningham, N. S. Wales, I. 317 (Morris s.v. Bear). Our coola (sloth or native bear) is about the size of an ordinary poodle dog, with shaggy, dirty-coloured fur, no tail, and claws and feet like a bear.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., xiv. (1878), 382. The climbing, leaf-eating koala.
