Koalas aren’t the only nonhumans w/ fingerprints: Close human relatives such as chimps & gorillas have them as well. The remarkable thing about koala prints is that they seem to have evolved independently. On the evolutionary tree of life, primates & modern koalas’ marsupial ancestors branched apart 70 million years ago. Scientists think the koala’s fingertip features developed much more recently in its evolutionary history, b/c most of its close relatives (ie. wombats and kangaroos) lack them.