Wombat: it lays down “cubes” and can kill with an attack from behind (13 photos)

However, this animal is the very embodiment of kindness and friendliness.





Well, you are, come in if anything happens.

Wombats are the cutest family of marsupials native to the upside-down continent. Yes, not only poisonous reptiles live there, but also such wonderful fluffies! The animals belong to the two-incisor order and are distant relatives of koalas. Wombats have a couple of common characteristics with them, such as thick fur, a backwards baby's bag, strange living habits and friendliness. Local residents love wombats so much that they name natural objects and cities after them, put their images on money, and make marsupials heroes of fairy tales and television shows. The Australians can be understood - wombats are indeed very charismatic!



If your party isn't like this, you don't even have to invite me.

There are three types of these cuties: one bare-nosed and two hairy-nosed: longhaired and Queensland. In fact, there are two most noticeable differences between them. The first is the presence/absence of fur on the nose, and the second is the place of residence. Golonos live in the southeast of the mainland, including the islands of Tasmania and Victoria. Longhairs have chosen the arid southern outskirts of Australia. Well, Queensland wombats can only be found in a limited area of the 300-hectare national park, which is located in the center of the mainland, in the state of Queensland.





We took a guinea pig from Avito, but it grew to the size of a regular pig. Tell me, is this normal?

Other features of appearance, such as size and color, can vary even within the same population. On average, all wombats can grow up to 130 centimeters in length and weigh up to 40 kilograms. Yes, they are not tiny at all! Taking an adult animal into your arms can be quite difficult.



What is this, a mouse on steroids?

Therefore, if you are suddenly planning to go to Australia, then do not try to repeat all the photographs of people with these chubby ones. In addition to sciatica, you can get a bite, scratches from claws or a couple of bruises: wild wombats are not aggressive, but shy and stupid. And a frightened marsupial carcass may not act very carefully!



- Son, leave the room, guests have arrived. - Well, maaaah, I don’t want to sit with you!

But the most terrible weapon of wombats is not their claws or teeth. Butt is their trump card! The loin part of animals is formed by strong pelvic bones, cartilage, muscles, fat, skin and wool. The animals make the most of their armored rear. For starters, they protect themselves with it. The animals have few enemies - dingoes, Tasmanian devils, foxes and partly people. Naturally, bipeds do not attack wombats on purpose. Animals often die under wheels. Only dogs are at risk of attacking adults in order to eat them. If this happens, the marsupials try to hide in their hole as quickly as possible. But it’s not just like that: the entrance to the animal’s shelter is blocked... by the butt!



When a trainer says your butt should be as tight as a nut, now you know who he means.

It is quite difficult to bite through the armored butt, so predators think twice before attacking a wombat - sometimes the effort of catching it is not worth the time and effort. There is a version that our heroes know how to break the skulls of their enemies. They say the animals crouch down, allowing the meat-eater to stick their head into the hole, and then suddenly stand up. There is no real evidence or witnesses to this, but in theory it is acceptable.



The world needs a superhero with an armored butt! Wombat, come!

But our twerk masters can do more than just defend themselves. With the help of the sirloin, animals make friends and find a partner for mating. At first, baby wombats push their butts against each other and with their mother in comic games, and then everything develops into fights for a partner. In each population, the mating season depends on the beginning of the rainy season and its abundance: the more water spills, the better the grass grows, the higher the likelihood that wombats will breed this year.



Like if you don't want toliving under the covers with his beloved, and not all this.

First, males fight with each other and establish a hierarchy. But in order for the most dominant dominant to mate with a female, he will have to work harder. Preliminary caresses of animals are more like a ritual fight: wombats play tag, bite each other on the butt, scratch with their claws, push and in every possible way torture each other so that shreds fly through the back streets!



If you don't know how to make amends to a girl, give her a massage. You can't go wrong!

After such games, the female will have a short 22-day pregnancy, after which the newborn will move into the pouch, where it will spend another 6-9 months. Unlike kangaroos' pouches, wombats' pouches open backwards to prevent soil from falling inside when digging. Wombat cubs reach full independence by the age of one year, but, apparently, they remain close to their mother for some time.



This is not what you think! A baby wombat says hi to you straight from its pouch!

Wombats live in deep burrows of their own making, which sometimes reach 20 meters in length and 3.5 meters in depth. These animals are not very social, but tolerate up to 10 neighbors at once. They communicate with each other using sounds, smells and marking their territory with excrement. This is another hype topic, because animal waste has an unusual shape of cubes and parallelepipeds. This is what it means to lay down bricks!



Quite a unique castle...

This feature is due to the entire digestive system of animals in general and the very last section of the gastrointestinal tract in particular. Marsupials feed on coarse grass alone. It takes about two weeks to fully digest it. During this time, symbiont bacteria in the intestines will help get the most out of this vegan menu. And then the wombat’s body will extract most of the water from processed products: in the arid climate of Australia, liquid is worth its weight in gold.



Oh, dry, hard grass! My lovely!

Well, the shape of the animal’s egg capsule is produced due to the varying degrees of rigidity of the walls of the rectum. Passing through the gastrointestinal tract, waste products will be flattened from above, below, and from the sides. The output is a “brick”. Wombats stack their poop on top of each other like a wall - so that it is more visible to all their relatives.



Unique hand-made building materials. Hurry up to buy!

According to current statistics, two out of three wombat populations are not threatened. As we have already found out, animals have a strong rear and are quite capable of defending themselves. But the third, Queensland ones, are today in critical condition - there are about 300 of them left. This is also why Australians are so eager to popularize these chubby ones. The more people know about the problem, the easier it will be to solve it.