The seafood market where the deadly coronavirus originally spread was reportedly selling live koalas, wolf pups, snakes, and rats to eat.
The Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market in China may have spread the virus Chinese officials reported on Wednesday.
It is believed the coronavirus was spread through the wet-market as close proximity between animals and humans put individuals at risk of catching a disease.
"When you bring animals together in these unnatural situations, you have the risk of human diseases emerging," Kevin Olival a disease ecologist at the EcoHealth alliance told National Geographic.
According to the South Morning Chinese Post, the market sold a variety of wild animals from civet cats to porcupines to beavers.
The food menu shows a koala known in Wuhan as a "live tree bears" sold for just NZD$15.
Following information that the Huanan wholesale seafood market was linked to the spread of the deadly virus, China has since banned the sale of live animals in Wuhan, reported Business Insider.
As of Thursday morning, it's understood there have been 517 confirmed cases of the virus, with 17 people dying. Of those, 509 of the infected are from China, as are all those killed.
The virus has so far infected people in China, while patients have been identified in Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, South Korea and now potentially Australia.
The virus is believed to belong to the same group of coronaviruses as the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed nearly 800 people globally in a 2002-2003 outbreak. That illness also began in China.
There is currently no vaccine for the virus, and officials are trying to understand how efficiently it spreads to understand its potential threat.
