New Faeces

Welcome to Nature Corner and I extend that to all of you. 

By subscribing to this page you are showing that you have a deep care and affection for the Natural World and all of the creatures that inhabit it. 

This is a difficult time for flora, fauna and wildlife faced with pressures on their habitat from urban sprawl, pollution, land clearances and the worst excesses of climate change including adverse weather and wildfires.

Just take a few moments to marvel and be amazed at the habits and practices of some of the most iconic animals on the planet.

We start with a fossorial herbivorous marsupial only found in Australia and Tasmania. 

It is, of course, the Wombat or Vombatus ursinus. 

Rarely seen because of its solitary nocturnal lifestyle it is actually the largest of burrowing mammals and the second largest marsupial with individuals from 90 to 115cm in length. 

Another unique feature of the species is the distinctive shape of their poo- it is cube shaped. 

Such regular shapes are more likely to be from a manufacturing or machine process such as from extrusion or injection moulding and are otherwise unknown in the natural world 

Scientists have devoted much time and effort to research into why the poo should be in cubic form and have come to the following conclusion. 

Wombats have two alimentary systems and the investigation of this tract was undertaken on poor unfortunate Wombats who were recovered but ultimately died from injuries sustained in collisions with road traffic. 

It appears that in the final eight percent of the intestine the faeces are changed from a liquid like state into a solid composed of separate cubes of around 2cm length. 

This transition is due to the azimuthally varying elastic properties of the intestinal wall. 

In the very natural process of emptying their intestines this part of the digestive system of the Wombat experiences a degree of inflation into a long balloon profile. 

The waste matter, in traversing this route, is subjected to different strains and stresses. 

These have been measured at 20 percent force to the outer corners of the faeces and 75 percent at its edges. 

If you were to take a cross-section of the intestine under such stresses you would clearly see the formation of a cube shape mould. 

The cubic poos are not a freak of nature but act in perfect synergy with the territorial behaviour of the Wombat. 

In being of regular flat sides the deposits stay exactly where they are first pooped out and so serve to easily and efficiently mark the territory of the dominant Wombat in any one area of their natural habitat. In the potentially extreme weather conditions and topography in their native Australia and Tasmania what could be worse than any other shaped poo just rolling away leaving the forests and shrublands open for territorial claims by other wombats. 

Fortunately Wombats are continuing to thrive in the wild and have been categorised as being a species of LC or Least Concern in Environmental and extinction criteria.(2016 figures)

Official citation for the core research document  http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2018.DFD.E19.1
Yang, Chan, Carver and Hu (2018)