It’s been a hectic week. My fiancé had to go on an unexpected work trip to Australia, leaving me home alone to take care of the cat. Ori and I have been relaxing at home, though! And my fiancé has had some free time to explore Australia.
I personally think he should be spending his time looking for today’s animal, the wombat. Unfortunately, wombats are nocturnal, so he’s unlikely to find any!
Australia has three species of wombats: the common or bare-nosed wombats and two species of hairy-nosed wombats. Hairy-nosed wombats have hairier noses than the common wombat (surprise, surprise), softer fur, and larger ears. All wombats are about 30 inches (76 centimeters) long and weigh between 42 and 88 pounds (19 to 40 kilograms).
Burrowing marsupials
While wombats might look like short, stocky bears, they’re marsupials like koalas and kangaroos. This means that their young, called joeys, live in pouches. A wombat gives birth to a single joey every two years.
Unlike koalas or kangaroos, wombats dig and live in burrows underground. In fact, wombats are the world’s largest burrowing animals! With their broad feet and large claws, wombats can move up to 3 feet (1 meter) of dirt in a single night. All of this moving dirt could quickly fill up a wombat’s pouch, but don’t worry! They have a solution. Unlike many other marsupials, a wombat’s pouch opens towards the mother’s butt. This keeps dirt from getting in her pouch while excavating a new burrow.
Sturdy butt
Wombat burrows provide protection from predators like the dingo and the Tasmanian devil. Wombats can move surprisingly fast for their thick, stocky stature, reaching speeds of up to 25 miles per hour (40 kilometers per hour) running when needed. But you can’t always run from your problems. So, wombats dive into their tunnels headfirst and block the entrance with their butt.
“Aren’t they still in danger from predators?” I hear you ask. No! First, wombats have a very tiny tail, so predators don’t have much to grab onto if they want to pull a wombat out of its burrow. And second of all, wombats have a thick, firm butt. Their rear end is covered in extra-thick skin and a layer of cartilage, so a bite to the butt doesn’t cause that much damage. There are even stories of wombats using their butts to crush intruders against the walls and ceilings of their burrows (but scientists still don’t have proof of this actually happening).
Sturdy butts also play an essential role in wombat mating rituals. When a female is flirting, she bites the butt of a male before running off. The male then chases her. Males will also bite female butts to get them to run. Biting and chasing is the first step to love in the wombat world!
Cubed poop
Wombats are special for another reason: they are the only animals that poop cubes. They typically excrete four to eight cubes at a time and, over the course of a day, can poop 100 cubes.
Cube poops are made from wombats’ unique intestines. A wombat’s intestines are 33 feet long, about 10 times the length of the typical wombat. Food slowly travels through this long intestine over eight to 14 days to squeeze out all potential nutrients. In contrast, that’s about four times longer than food moves through a human’s digestive tract. Wombat feces are also much drier than ours because their intestines take the time to squeeze out as much water as possible.
The feces go through a series of contractions as they move down the intestines. A wombat’s intestine has rigid and elastic parts; one scientist describes it as “a rubber band with two ends kept slightly taut and the center section drooping.” These two parts contract at different speeds, creating corners as the poop moves through the intestine. Although these contractions are subtle, there are a lot of them. Feces will experience over 40,000 contractions as they move through the wombat.
That’s the “how” behind poop cubes, but why has this evolved? Scientists think that poop cubes serve as a form of communication between wombats. After all, wombats will place cubes around their territory after defecating. And unlike round or cylindrical poop, cubed poop is much less likely to roll off of rocks or logs.
If he’s lucky, my fiancé may find some stacked wombat poops indicating a wombat lives nearby!
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