The researchers may have found the answer to a mystery in the animal kingdom: how do the wombats produce a shit-like cubes?

A study by scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology found that the elasticity of a wombat's intestines plays a key role in turning their feces into cubes. The study authors examined wombats euthanized after collisions with motor vehicles in Australia and Tasmania, focusing on their digestive tract.

The study found that near the end of a wombat's intestines, feces passed from one liquid state to another, in solid, separate cubic forms. The elastic properties associated with the intestines of a wombat help to create the cube shape.

"We currently have only two methods to make cubes: we mold it or we cut it out.We now have this third method," said Patricia Yang, lead author of the study and postdoctoral fellow in mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech. in a report.

"It would be an interesting method to apply to the manufacturing process: how to create a cube with soft tissue instead of just molding it."

Yang and his colleagues presented their findings at the annual meeting of the Division of Fluid Dynamics of the American Physical Society in Atlanta, which ended Tuesday.

Researchers have indicated that wombats use their cubic excrement to delineate the territory and communicate with each other by scent. Feces are usually put in piles for better communication and the cubic shape prevents the droppings from rolling.

"We can learn from wombats and hopefully apply this new method to our manufacturing process," Yang said.

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