By Tim Binnall
A family in Australia were stunned when they discovered that a koala had somehow gotten into their home and taken up residence in their Christmas tree. The wild visitor was reportedly found by the McCormick family when they returned to their home in the community of Coromandel Valley on Wednesday evening. Upon noticing that their dog seemed oddly curious about the tree and that several ornaments had inexplicably fallen to the floor, they took a closer look at the faux fir and could not believe their eyes.
Initially thinking that perhaps one of her kids was playing a joke on her by putting a stuffed animal in the tree, Amanda McCormick quickly realized that was not the case and that the furry 'ornament' was, in fact, a young koala. The mystified mom theorized that the creature had gotten into the house at some point when they left the doors open and likely was in the residence for at least three hours before being discovered munching, in vain, on the the tree's fake leaves.
A subsequent call to a Koala rescue organization prompted similar amazement from the group, who first suspected that the odd report was a prank until they were convinced that it was real and dispatched a team to remove the animal, which put up a bit of a fight in the process, from the McCormick's home. The creature, dubbed Daphne by the family, has become something of a viral sensation on social media in Australia after daughter Amanda posted a hilarious TikTok video showcasing the koala while it hung from the tree.