Koala's Weird Mating Call Is A Grunt-Filled Masterpiece

If asked to guess what a koala love song sounds like, most people wouldn't say, "like a Wookiee inhaling a dying pig." Most people, it turns out, would be completely wrong.

Keepers at Sydney's Taronga Zoo recently captured the surprisingly porcine mating call of a horned up koala named Storm and, well, just check this thing out:

click to play video

According to the zoo, researchers believe male koalas use the calls "to attract females and avoid confrontation with competitors," or pretty much the opposite of the effect it would have if used by a male human.

In the popular imagination, koalas are something akin to giant, sentient teddy bears. Once the lights go out, however, it's clear that koalas are just as animal as the rest of us.