LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Louisville Zoo took in two male koalas from the San Diego Zoo last week and had the exhibit’s grand opening on Tuesday, June 11.

There was a lot of excitement with welcoming the koalas, Dharuk and Telowie. A steady stream of people lined up to enter the koala exhibit and see the zoo’s newest residents.

Louisville Zoo’s general curator Ron Evans talked to a group of children about the koalas and the process of getting them from San Diego to Louisville before their exhibit was revealed. (Spectrum News 1/Geraldine Torrellas)

“We’re excited to see them because our school is Old Mill Elementary and our mascot’s the Koalas,” said Georgia Sanders, who was visiting the zoo on Tuesday along with Emma Crady and Hannah Sanders.

“All the things that I’ve been seeing koalas, it’s Netflix shows so I’m actually just so excited to see them in real life,” followed Crady.

“They’re so cute and fluffy,” Sanders added.

It took a lot of work to prepare the zoo’s staff to take care of the koalas due to the animals having very specific needs.

“There’s a lot of things very unique about koalas,” said Jessica Cunningham, assistant mammal curator at the Louisville Zoo. “Just their care in general... they only eat eucalyptus so we have to be able to identify the species of eucalyptus that we’re providing them so that we can determine as keepers what are their favorite types of eucalyptus, how well are they eating and just overall health care is a lot different than the other animals.”

The koalas will be at the zoo indefinitely. For anyone planning to see them, there’s a good chance they may be sleeping. Koalas sleep about 20 hours a day.