Square poop and fat arses: Australian nature produces yet another wonder

Aug 21

3 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Though not as well-known as kangaroos or koalas, the wombat is another icon lurking in the bush down under.

"We saw several sorts of dung of different animals, one of which Wilson called a 'Whom-batt', which is an animal about 20 inches high, with short legs and a thick body with a large head, round ears, and very small eyes; is very fat, and has much the appearance of a badger."

--- John Price

The explorer John Price’s account of interior New South Wales first introduced the wombat to a European audience in 1798. Naming the animal “Whom-bat,” as the Dharug people called it, he immediately pointed to its similarities with the badger. Little he knew the vast array of unique adaptations that set this Southern mammal apart from its European lookalike.

Wombats live in burrows. They dig into the soil with long claws on their forelegs and kick out the debris with their hind legs. After drilling the floor, they would roll over to carve out the sides and ceilings. Occasionally, three or four female wombats would share the same burrow, which slowly develops into complex networks up to four meters deep and 150 meters long, with multiple entrances, tunnels, and chambers deterring even the most intelligent predators.

Wombat burrows. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Wombats are nocturnal creatures. They show bioluminescence in the darkness of their burrows. Though wombats normally live in solitude, when they appear in a group, people refer to them as a wisdom of wombats. Unlike most marsupials, such as their closest relative, the koala, female wombats carry a pouch opening backward to protect their joeys from the dirt and debris when digging. Weirdest of all, wombats excrete cube-shaped poop, probably moulded through the horizontal ridges in the first part of their large intestines. Though few know why wombats produce droppings of such unusual shapes, scientists believe the cubic structure prevents the faeces from rolling off rocks and branches that demarcate each individual’s territory.

Wombat Faeces. Source: Wikimedia Commons

When it feels threatened, a wombat would grab the intruder’s legs and crush their skull against the burrow’s roof. But not even their toughest adaptations could halt the settlers who believed their burrows stood in the way of livestock. Classified as pests, wombats began to face every kind of execution. Land clearing stripped away their habitats, where they must compete with introduced cattle and sheep. Others succumbed to poisons such as 1080 used as a bait to kill rabbits and wallabies, or fell to dingos, firearms, and vehicles. As a result, wombat populations dwindled. At one point, only 35 individual northern hair-nosed wombats, one of just three species, clung to a tiny patch of forest in Queensland. Today, they remain one of the world's most critically endangered species.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH_hAGkn_SI&t=4s

Scientists later discovered that wombat holes in fact benefit the ecosystem. They ventilate the soil, expedite water absorption, and carve out nutrient sinks for nearby plants. During bushfires, wombat holes remain a haven for animals even when the mightiest trees burned down. Finally recognizing the value of these natural non-conformers, the people who previously declared them as enemies have begun to protect them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM7Qkps1b5c

According to the Wombat Foundation, the number of the northern hairy-nosed wombats has risen to 400 today. In 2000, the marsupial even became a mascot for the Sydney Olympics, though fans continued to refer to it as “Fatso the fat-arsed wombat.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzcxA6_ncCo&t=1s

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