Pixie is a tiny koala joey weighing only about 200 grams and easily fits into one hand.
She is just a few months old and would normally still be safely hidden from the world inside her mother's pouch.
Named Ocean Drive Pixie by her carers, the joey was discovered after her mother was hit by a car on a busy road in Port Macquarie on the New South Wales mid-north coast.
The badly injured koala was taken to the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, where carers discovered she had a small joey in her pouch.
A decision was quickly made to put the joey into home care.
"Because the mother was in such bad shape we thought it best to take the joey out of the pouch. Lactation ends up stopping," said Cheyne Flanagan, the koala hospital's clinical director.
"That really indicated where her head was at; she had a lot of brain injury.
"She [the mother] is starting to come around the corner slowly.
"She's starting to eat a bit more. She's not really recognising leaf yet, we've got to actually put it in her mouth, but she's taking some soft foods."
Signs looking good for 'premmie' koala joey
Pixie would ordinarily have been developing in her mother's pouch for another few months.
"It's a long road, the female koala in her lactation period gives antibodies during the whole lactation and of course we can't do that," Ms Flanagan said.
Ms Flanagan said Pixie was doing well so far and in the past week had gained 5 grams and had also grown some fluffy hair.
"She was 195 grams when we first got her. She let me know it when I got her out of the pouch too, she squawked and was not a happy camper at all, and no injuries, none at all."
Round-the-clock home care
Barbara Barrett, a carer at the koala hospital for nearly two decades, is hand-raising Pixie and said she was the smallest joey she'd had in care.
Ms Barrett carries Pixie in makeshift pouch under her clothing and against her chest to ensure she stays warm, both day and night.
"It's a 24-hour-a-day job. I have to feed her every three to four hours," she said.
"I'm really happy with her; she's really still bright and she's strong.
"She has a special powdered milk formula for marsupials, and as she grows it goes up in strength."
Ms Barrett said being a koala carer was a special job.
Joey needs a mother's poo
When she's a bit bigger, Pixie will eventually move on to eating eucalypt leaves, but there's a step that has to occur before then.
"We have to do something special called giving her pap, which is a special maternal poo, that the females give to their joeys," Ms Flanagan said.
"When they eat that it allows their gut to be inoculated with the right bacteria and they can eat eucalypt leaf after that. It's usually around five months' gestation.
All being well, Pixie will eventually be transferred to a yard at the koala hospital and will learn how to fend for herself before being released into the wild.
Drivers urged to be on the lookout as koala numbers decline
Ms Flanagan said the loss of habitat and disease were the biggest issues affecting koalas, with car strikes also a major problem.
"Queensland and NSW are the worst as we are the ones with so much urbanisation and development, mixed in with a lot of disease, which is affected by the impact on habitat.
"Use your peripheral vision to look on the sides of the road in case something comes out."
