The Australian fauna has hundreds of endemic species that are very curious in all aspects. Today we focus on the adorable wombat. The wombat ( Vombatus ursinus ) is a marsupial that makes up one of the emblematic species of the great island-continent that is Australia.
This plump, cub-like marsupial is the only animal we know of that produces bucket-shaped poop. These unique droppings have long been a biological mystery, although biologists have partially attributed their shape to the incredible dryness of wombat poop. But thanks to a study by Patricia Yang, an expert in fluid hydrodynamics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, this mystery has been solved.
To figure it out, Yang and his team of biologists analyzed two deceased wombats, finding that the oddly shaped granules compacted into square shapes shortly before being excreted from the animal’s body.
Their findings suggest that nor is it up to the last 8% of the intestine when a wombat’s waste turns into a solid cube, and this shape is preserved even after it is compressed through the final outlet (which is a normal round anus).
Yang and his team concluded that the highly defined profile of the feces was formed by variations in the elasticity of the wombat’s intestinal walls. Bowel stretches that are less elastic and stiffer are responsible for the sharp edges of the resulting cube, experts suggest.
What’s more,herbivores tend to produce very dry and compact droppings,which in turn helps the pieces retain their shape after being ejected outside.
Cubic structures are rare in biology because their flat surfaces and sharp corners require a lot of additional energy. Therefore, understanding how these peculiar feces are formed in nature was quite important for both biology and mechanical engineering.
As it is, it is all thanks to the soft tissue in your intestines. “Currently we only have two methods of making cubes: we mold it or we cut it. Now we have this third method,” explains Yang. “It would be a great method to apply to the manufacturing process: how to make a cube out of soft tissue instead of just molding it.”
As such, wombats have some of the driest feces among mammals, as we have seen and this means that their droppings are less malleable and less likely to lose their shape.
This is just one of its many curiosities! Have fun!
