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Bare-nosed wombats, or common wombats, can be found in the forests of the hilly landscapes of southern and southeastern Australia and in Tasmania.
Furry marsupials are renowned for producing distinctive cuboid droppings, which researchers believe then tactically disperse in order to communicate with each other.
Now scientists at the University of Tasmania have discovered more about this curious phenomenon.
Using lab tests and mathematical models, a team of researchers found that there were two rigid areas and two flexible areas around the circumference of the wombat intestine. The intestine, at 33 feet long, is about 10 times the length of a wombat’s body.
“This ability to form relatively uniform and clean feces is unique in the animal kingdom,” Scott Carver, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Tasmania, said in a statement.
“They place these feces in important places in their home range, such as around a rock or a log, to communicate with each other. Our research has found that these cubes form in the bottom 17 percent of the body. colon intestine, ”he said.
Researchers say the distinctive cubic shape of wombat poop is caused by the drying of feces in the colon and muscle contractions, which form the poop’s uniform size and corners.
“Bare-nosed wombats are renowned for producing distinctive cube-shaped droppings. This ability to form relatively uniform and clean droppings is unique in the animal kingdom,” Carver added.
In humans, food passes through the intestine in a day or two, but a wombat’s digestive process can take up to four times as long, so the animal can extract all of the nutritional content possible from its food. Creatures also produce poop which is much drier than human feces – because they are better at extracting water from the intestines.
Carver said the discovery that cubes are created inside a soft tube reveals “a whole new way of making cubes,” which could have implications for manufacturing, clinical pathology and digestive health.
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