Wombat What is a Wombat?

Photo: Wombat - Frontal view

Wombats are sturdy, burrowing marsupials with compact bodies, short, powerful legs, sharp claws for digging, and a slow waddling walk. They are typically 1 meter (3.3 feet) in length, stand about 36cm (1 foot) tall and weigh up to 40 kilograms (88 pounds). Wombats have thick, soft light brown to black fur. They have large heads with broad snouts, thick whiskers and small eyes with weak eyesight, but they have an excellent sense of smell and hearing. They can also detect tiny ground vibrations and are the smartest marsupial. Male and female wombats are similar in size and appearance.

Despite being relatively small and compact with a slow walking pace, wombats can gallop at speeds of up to 40kph. This is almost as fast as Usain Bolt, the fastest human, who reached 44kph. Wombats are nocturnal and spend much of their day sleeping in their burrows, which they dig using their powerful claws. As they do not sweat, wombats are more tolerant of cold temperatures than heat. During warmer periods, they prefer to retreat into their burrows for shelter. Wombats are shy and reclusive animals, but faced with danger, wombats will grunt aggressively and may attack. The wombat is the only animal in the world that does cube-shaped poop, called "scat". Its closest living relative is the koala.

Why do Wombats do Square Poo?

The World's Deadliest Butt How a Wombat Defends Itself from Attack

Wombat Attack Video

Watch Video

The wombat has a round, sloping rump (bum) made up of four fused bony plates covered in cartilage, fat, thick skin, and fur that is essentially an extremely tough and effective shield.

When attacked, the wombat points its tough well-padded rear at the attacker and uses it as a shield to protect itself. If possible, it will flee to the nearest burrow and block the entrance with its rump making it difficult for a predator to grab onto it. If a predator succeeds in gaining access into the burrow, the wombat will defend itself by smashing the attacker's head against the roof or wall of the burrow with its hard well-protected rump. Many a predator has met an untimely death in this way.

Wombat Poop What's with the Cube-Shaped Poo, Wombat?

Photo: Cube-shaped wombat poop (faeces)

Despite having round anuses like other mammals, wombats do not produce round pellets, tubular coils or messy piles of faeces. Instead, a wombat produces nearly 100 six-sided 2cm cubes poop pellets (faeces) each day and places these strategically around its territory. Their poop is designed this way to prevent them from rolling away. The wombat stacks its cubes - the higher, the better - on logs, rocks and other predominant places as a scent signal. This helps it to find its way back to its burrow in the dark and advertises its age, sex, sexual maturity, general health, and what type of wombat it is.

Wombat's Square Poop Video

Watch Video

Wombats Species Types of Wombats

There are three species of wombat—the common wombat and two types of hairy-nosed wombats. Even though wombat species are related, the hairy-nosed wombat is genetically very different from the common wombat. Their genetic codes are around 8% different. This difference in genes is higher than between humans and chimpanzees, which is only 2% different.

Common Wombat (Vombatus ursinus)

Photo: Wombat Face

The common wombat, also known as a bare-nosed wombat, has a bare, pointed nose, small ears, and coarse brown fur. It has short ears, a narrow snout, rough fur, and no hair in its nose. Its front paws are more dexterous than that of the hairy-nosed variety. This allows the common wombat to grasp vegetation to rip it out of the ground. It is the only surviving member of the species Vombatus.

Common wombats weigh between 22–39kg, and the male is larger than the female. They are nocturnal during the summer, but in winter, they often come out of their burrows during the day to feed and sun themselves.

Hairy-nosed Wombat (Two Types)

Photo: Hairy-nosed Wombat

There are two types of Hairy-nosed wombats. They have larger ears, a hairier noses, slightly longer heads with squarer snouts, and softer fur compared to the common wombat. These wombats are genetically very different from their distant cousins, the common wombats. Hairy-nosed wombats receive sufficient moisture from their diet and do not need to drink.

Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus krefftii) is the largest of the three species of wombats, measuring up to a meter in length and weighing up to 32 kilos. The female is larger than the male. They are only found in a very small area of Queensland and are critically endangered. Only about 100 survive in the wild. They were once found throughout the arid inland parts of Victoria and up to Queensland.

Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus latifrons) is the smallest of the wombat species. An adult weighing about 23 kilos and the male is larger than the female. They prefer the coastal and high country of south-eastern Australia and are the most adapted to arid climates.

How the Wombat Got Its Name

Wombat Burrow The Wombat's Home

Photo: Wombat underground burrow

The wombat digs its burrows in locations such as crests, gullies and creek-sides safe from predators, temperature extremes and bushfires. Using its strong legs and flat claws, the wombat hollows out its burrow by digging with its front legs while pushing the dirt out with its rear feet. It excavates the sides and ceiling of its tunnels by lying on its side and using its front feet.

A wombat is very fond of its burrows, which can be up to 20m long and include as many as 50 entrances. It may have up to twelve burrows scattered around its home range, with three or four serving as its primary residence. These main burrows are more elaborate, with many sub-tunnels, sleeping quarters, and entrances. It will typically spend 1-4 days sleeping in the same shelter before moving on to the next one. These burrows are sometimes shared with other wombats. It is not known if there is any family connection between these sharing wombats. A wombat will spend up to two-thirds of its life inside a burrow.

Wombat Habitat Where Do the Wombats Live?

Photo: Wombat Habitat Map

Wombats live in temperate forests and grasslands of eastern Australia and eucalypt woodlands and semi-arid grasslands of east-central Queensland and southern Australia. The home range of wombats is typically about 18 ha, with an inner core area of around 3 ha and circular in shape. Wombat ranges may overlap with that of others, but they do not actively defend their territories; they just keep out of each other's way. Wombats are territorial and solitary animals. They mark out their home range by rubbing their scent on trees and scattering their dropping throughout this area and live within their territory independently.

Common Wombat — The common wombat lives in temperate forests and grasslands of eastern Australia, extending from Queensland to southern parts of Victoria and all of Tasmania, where the habitat is suitable for burrowing. It is one of the few marsupials that will venture above the snowline in some of the mountainous areas of New South Wales and Victoria. (Red areas of the map).

Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat — The northern hairy-nosed wombat is only found in a small area of east-central Queensland in semi-arid grasslands and eucalypt woodlands. (Little purple dot on the map).

Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat — The southern hairy-nosed wombat only lives in parts of southern South Australia and south-western Western Australia in semi-arid grasslands and eucalypt woodlands. (Green area on the map).

Wombat Diet What Do Wombats Eat?

Photo: Wombat foraging for food

Wombats eat native grasses, roots, succulent, tubers and tree bark. They are nocturnal grazing herbivores that usually come out after dark to feed. However, in cooler months, they may also come out during the day. Wombats graze for between three to eight hours a day. They shear off their food with their sharp front incisor teeth, which grow continuously as they are worn down by its rough diet and digging.

Wombats have a prolonged digestive process. Food can take between 3-8 days to pass through its gut. This enables the wombats to extract the maximum energy and moisture from their generally poor-quality diet. Their faeces is cube-shaped and are among the driest of any animal.

Wombat Reproduction & Life Cycle Baby Wombat

Photo: Wombat baby (joey) in rear-facing pouch

Wombats usually breed between October and January when there is plenty of food and mild weather. Courtship consists of the male wombat chasing the female in wide circles, biting her on her rump, and rolling her over on her side for coitus.

Joey Birth Video

Watch Video

The female reproductive anatomy of a wombat is similar to that of other marsupials. However, the female wombat's pouch entrance faces backward. This adaptation prevents dirt from entering the pouch when the animal is digging. Also, because the wombat has very low ground clearance, it prevents the young baby from hitting obstacles or getting entangled in vegetation when the wombat runs.

The gestation period for wombats is 20-30 days. Then, the young neophyte, no bigger than a jelly bean and weighing just half a gram, exits from its mother's birth canal and crawls up into her rearward-facing pouch. There it latches onto a nipple and remains hidden and growing for around 6-10 months. After this time, it will venture out of its pouch to feed with its mother and is wholly independent 8-10 months later. A baby wombat is called a "joey". Wombats become sexually mature at about two years of age.

Wombats live for about 15 years.

Wombat Threats and Predators Is the Wombat Surviving?

The major threats to the wombat today are land clearing, motor vehicle impacts, dingoes, foxes, and dogs. Until the mid 20th century, wombats were considered as pests because of their burrowing, damage they caused to fencing and grazing competition with pastoral livestock. There were bounties for killing wombats.

Wombat Conservation Status Is the Wombat Endangered?

Wombats are protected in most parts of Australia, with a few exceptions in Victoria. The conservation status of the common wombat and southern hairy-nosed wombat is considered to be stable and not endangered. However, the northern hairy-nosed wombat is deemed to be critically endangered, with an estimated population size of around 100 individuals remaining in the wild. This species has been severely threatened by habitat loss, predation, drought, competition for food by livestock such as cattle and sheep, disease infestations, and bushfires.

How the Wombat Got its Name

Early European settlers referred to these animals as badgers because they were about the same size and behaved like that animal back in Europe. A white settler, named John Price first wrote about this animal in 1798 and called it a 'Whom-batt'. He was using a name used by the Dharuk Aboriginal people who once lived in the area that is now the city of Sydney. They called this animal a 'wambad'.

Wombats as Pets Pet Wombats are Not a Good Idea

Wombats may appear cute and cuddly, especially when young, but the truth is – they do not make good pets. These docile wild animals are solitary creatures that typically shy away from humans and can become quite aggressive when they get older. Their sharp claws and teeth can easily cause serious harm if provoked. A large wombat is also incredibly strong and can tear down fences, doors or walls! It is illegal in most states of Australia to own a wombat as a pet, so it is best to leave them in the wild where they belong.

Extinct Wombats Giant Wombats of the Past

One of the most evocative extinct creatures to have lived in Australia is the Giant Wombat. These creatures, also known as Diprotodon, were massive, measuring up to two meters in length, weighing 180-250 kgs, and as tall as an adult human. However, unlike their smaller present-day contemporaries, these animals didn't burrow into the ground. Instead, they lived an above-ground life. Fossil records suggest that these massive wombats went extinct around 40,000 years ago. Two theories have been put forward for their extinction. The first is climate change, where Australia became drier and more arid depriving these huge animals of their food supply. The second is that early Aborigines may have hunted down these huge, slow-moving animals hastening their extinction.