Why do wombats poop cubes and why should they. Bashny.Net

Wombat — a close relative of the Koala is native to Australia. He prefers solitude and most active at night. Day wombats are sitting in underground burrows, and at night come out to eat grass and other vegetation. Wombats sleep on average around 16 hours a day and have poor eyesight, so in the search for food and when moving they rely mainly on smell.





The wombat almost no natural enemies, except, perhaps, dogs Dingo and Tasmanian devil. However, wombat can repel the attack of a predator, if necessary: turning back, the animal can block her hole and repel most attackers, either crush their limbs on the walls of his cave. The rear part of their body is extremely solid due to thick skin, cartilage, and bone, so the wombats can successfully defend.

Solid but the rear part is not the only physiological peculiarity of wombat. Few people know, but wombats are almost the only animals that poop cubes. They produce 80 to 100 blocks per night. Wombats, like other animals, use excrement to indicate their presence. Thus they try to avoid sudden confrontations with the representatives of his, and sometimes other species.

Scientists have found that wombats are able to distinguish between types of feces and try to avoid places where such obvious evidence of the presence of predators or other males-wombats. The content of hormones in excreta can also say, for example, when females are most fertile. At the same time, wombats leave poop around their holes and over rocks and logs to relatives it was easier to find them. Their special shape and the flat sides of the cubes allow them to roll even with the most unstable surfaces.

But how to get the cubes?

No, wombats do not square the anus. In the course of a long digestive process, which takes 14 to 18 days, digesting the food becomes very dry and compact. In the small intestine are located in horizontal grooves that are likely to turn feces into cubes. While the rectum is relatively flat, allowing you to maintain a cubic shape.

Thus, we can conclude that the wombats leading nocturnal and has poor eyesight, but acute sense of smell, use the feces as main way to tell where they live and if there are any outsiders to avoid conflict. Cubic poops are the result of diet and a long digestion. In addition, the cubes placed perfectly on the tops of rocks or logs, and flat faces don't roll off surfaces.