For many years scientist have been trying to solve the mystery of wombat’s poop. Why is it cube-shaped?
Wombats make around 100 of cube-shaped feces a day and they use them to mark their territory. There is a theory that they are cube-shaped because wombats climb on rocks and such feces do not easily roll off..
"Wombats have really strong sense of smell that they use probably for communication," said University of Tasmania wildlife ecologist Scott Carver, who co-authored the study. "We don't know what that information they're sharing is, but it might be something about mating, it might be something about general advertising about who's in the area."
But how wombats produce their poop?
The cube-shaped poop is caused by the very dry environment wombats live in. Their digestion can take up to 2 weeks so their body has enough time to extract all the possible nutrition and moisture from the food, resulting in a very dry poop.. It is formed in the last 17% of the intestines where it changes from liquid state into solid.
Scientist also discovered that wombat’s intestines have much more irregular shape than other animals, which also contributes to producing such unique shape.
Read here more detailed explanation how wombat produce their cube-shaped poop.
The recent findings have been published in Royal Society of Chemistry’s journal Soft Matter
Cute wombat is a character in our children’s book about Kevin and his friends. Learn more here about ‘Kevin the kangaroo that couldn’t hop’ where you will meet also other Australian animals.
Photo by David Clode on Unsplash
