What is an animal like a wombat? What does this unique animal look like? Where does it live? Why are wombat feces cubed? We will talk about all this in the presented publication.
What does a wombat look like?
The wombat is something akin to a small teddy bear and koala. Adult individuals grow on average a little over a meter in length. Moreover, their weight can be from 25 to 45 kilograms.
What does a wombat look like? The animal has a compact body, which rests on massive, short legs. Each limb contains five clawed fingers, which are an excellent tool for creating holes deep in the ground. The tail of the animal is short and has no practical significance. The body of the wombat is covered with thick soft wool. In some representatives of the species, the fur may differ in a grayish, brown or reddish hue.
The head of the animal is large, flattened on the sides. On the face are small black eyes. There are a dozen teeth in the wombat's mouth. A pair of upper incisors is significant in length. The structure of the oral cavity is as close as possible to the structure of the oral cavity of rodents.
Where does the wombat live?
Representatives of the species live on the basis of Tasmania. Such animals are also widespread in Australia. Wombats prefer to avoid dense forests and thickets. Animals settle in open spaces, where it is possible to create deep, branched holes in the soil. Some tunnels of these mammals reach a length of several tens of meters. In places where wombats live, real underground palaces are formed, which give shelter to entire families.
Lifestyle
Wombats show increased activity at night. With the onset of midday heat, they gather in numerous groups in their deep underground shelters. Here the animals rest and digest food. As soon as it gets dark, the wombats leave the minks to warm up and replenish the stomach.
Nutrition
Wombats are real gourmets in the animal world. The basis of their diet is vegetation, in particular young and juicy shoots. Do not disdain wombats and dry grass. In addition, animals get nutritious roots. Occasionally they can eat mushrooms, berries, mosses. The presence of a well-developed, sensitive sense of smell helps them to choose the best food.
The wombat beast acts as an animal that requires a minimum amount of water to exist. In a day of an adult, it is enough to absorb no more than 20 grams of liquid for every kilogram of weight. Therefore, the wombat perfectly tolerates heat and drought. For a long time, the animal can do without water at all, getting liquid from succulent plants.
Why do wombats poop cubes?
Animal lovers are attracted not only by the cute appearance of these animals. People often wonder why a wombat has a square droppings. Zoologists have proven that the cause is the special structure of the digestive system. Representatives of the species feed on plants, often absorbing them in a dry form. Such food needs a long digestion to absorb the maximum amount of nutrients. The result of the process is cubic feces of wombats.
The stomach of such animals has the simplest device. The large intestine is divided into several parts. In the area where waste products from the stomach fall, there are extremely dense, powerful muscle tissues. Therefore, the feces of wombats are qualitatively compressed here. Furrows lie along the next section. They act as original molds that create a square litter of a wombat.
The end of the rectum of the animal, on the contrary, is extremely elastic and expanded. Muscle tissue in the presented intestine is not able to squeeze feces with such force that it can significantly change its shape. During the release of waste products into the environment, the wombat feces are divided into neat “bricks”.
What practical application does this feature find? Cubic-shaped feces give an animal several advantages. With the help of excrement, the animal indicates the territory, which avoids frequent skirmishes with other individuals. Wombats are able to determine the presence of feces by smell. Therefore, bypass other people's habitats. Feces of a specific form are excellently held on a variety of surfaces, do not roll down from hills.
From the foregoing, it can be concluded that wombats, which have poor eyesight, but have a well-developed sense of smell, use cubic excrement as a “message” to other animals about their presence in a particular area. Such feces not only serve to distinguish occupied areas, but also can become a repulsive factor for predators.
Breeding
Wombats acquire the ability to reproduce offspring at the age of two. Such animals do not have a mating season at certain times of the year. They can reproduce throughout all seasons.
Wombats are marsupial animals. Having been born, the cub immediately enters the protective skin fold on the body of the mother. Here, the female has several nipples that provide the baby with nutritious milk over the next six months. Having left the mother’s bag, the young individual does not leave the group, and everywhere follows the older relatives. Thus, the cub receives the experience necessary for independent living.
Natural enemies
In the natural habitat, the main enemies of wombats are wild dingo dogs . To protect themselves from such enemies, animals often crawl into a hole, covering the entrance with their own backside. Thick skin in combination with powerful bones that are located in this part of the body create an excellent barrier to predators. If the offender nevertheless managed to get into the underground dwelling, the wombats try to crush the uninvited guest with their own weight, pushing him to the walls of the hole.
What is the relationship of wombats with humans? Unfortunately, in Australia, where there are numerous populations of such animals, there are often cases of car collisions. If people wander into the territory of wombats, these friendly animals do not show any fear and do not show open aggression. At too close a distance to humans, animals can take a harsh look, inflating the body and swinging their heads to the sides, and also making lowing sounds, but nothing more.
In Australia, wombats are often tamed and kept as pets. A person is attracted to their good-natured, flexible character, as well as the possibility of training.
Interesting Facts
There are some interesting facts about wombats:
- In the old days, fishermen who lived on the coast near the island of Tasmania used such animals as an alternative to domestic dogs.
- In Australia, there are about 100 species of wombats.
- Archaeologists have found fossils of distant relatives of these marsupials, whose age is about 10,000 years. In those days, wombats had dimensions that reached the dimensions of a hippo.
- Representatives of the species are able to dig a hole in the soil as quickly as an adult male who would use a shovel for this.
- In Latin, the name of the animal means "bag." However, there are types of wombats on the body of which there is no such skin fold. To stay on the body of the mother, the cubs grab hold of milk teats or wool.