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Wombat

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Mammals

                    iWombats
   Wombat in the snow
   Wombat in the snow
            Scientific classification

   Kingdom:    Animalia
   Phylum:     Chordata
   Class:      Mammalia
   Infraclass: Marsupialia
   Order:      Diprotodontia
   Suborder:   Vombatiformes
   Family:     Vombatidae
               Burnett, 1829

                             Genera and Species

     * Vombatus
          + Vombatus ursinus
     * Lasiorhinus
          + Lasiorhinus latifrons
          + Lasiorhinus krefftii
     * † Rhizophascolomus
     * † Phascolonus
     * † Warendja
     * † Ramasayia

   Wombats are Australian marsupials; they are short-legged, muscular
   quadrupeds, approximately one metre (3 feet) in length and with a very
   short tail. The name wombat comes from the Eora Aboriginal community
   who were the original inhabitants of the Sydney area. Wombats dig
   extensive burrow systems with rodent-like front teeth and powerful
   claws. Although mainly crepuscular and nocturnal, wombats will also
   venture out to feed on cool or overcast days. They are not as easily
   seen as many animals, but leave ample evidence of their passage,
   treating fences as a minor inconvenience to be gone through or under
   and leaving distinctive cubic scats. Wombats are herbivores, their diet
   consisting mostly of grasses, sedges, herbs, bark and roots.

History

   Wombats, like all the larger living marsupials, are part of the
   Diprotodontia. The ancestors of modern wombats evolved sometime between
   55 and 26 million years ago (no useful fossil record has yet been found
   for this period) and about 12 species flourished until well into the
   ice ages. Among the several diprotodon (giant wombat) species was the
   largest marsupial to ever live. The earliest human inhabitants of
   Australia arrived while diprotodons were still common, and are believed
   to have brought about their extinction through hunting or habitat
   alteration.

Ecology and behaviour

   Wombat grazing at dusk in Narawntapu National Park, Tasmania.
   Tasmania's cooler climate makes all its creatures furrier than their
   cousins in mainland Australia.
   Enlarge
   Wombat grazing at dusk in Narawntapu National Park, Tasmania.
   Tasmania's cooler climate makes all its creatures furrier than their
   cousins in mainland Australia.

   Wombats have an extraordinarily slow metabolism, taking around 14 days
   to complete digestion, and generally move slowly. When required,
   however, they can reach up to 40 km/h and maintain that speed for up to
   90 seconds.

   When attacked, they can summon immense reserves of strength — one
   defense of a wombat against a predator (such as a Dingo) underground is
   to crush it against the roof of the tunnel until it stops breathing.
   Its primary defence is its toughened rear hide with most of the
   posterior made of cartilage which, combined with its lack of a
   meaningful tail, presents a difficult-to-bite target to any enemy who
   follows the wombat into its tunnel. One naturalist commented, that a
   predator biting into a wombat's rear would find it "comparable to the
   business end of a toilet brush".

Species

   There are three species, all around a metre long and weighing between
   20 and 35  kg (44 to 77 pounds):
     * Common Wombat (Vombatus ursinus)
     * Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus latifrons)
     * Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat or Yaminon (Lasiorhinus krefftii)

Wombats and humans

   A Wombat sniffing
   Enlarge
   A Wombat sniffing

   Unlike a lot of Australian marsupial wildlife, wombats appear to have
   little fear of humans. They can be awkwardly tamed in a captive
   situation, and even coaxed to be patted and held. Many parks, zoos and
   other tourist set-ups across Australia have wombats for show to the
   public. They are quite popular in the zoos they are present in.

   However, this lack of fear also means that they may display acts of
   aggression if provoked, or if they are simply in a bad mood. Its sheer
   weight makes a charging wombat capable of knocking a man over, and
   their sharp teeth and powerful jaws can result in severe wounds. The
   naturalist Harry Frauca once received a bite 2 cm deep into the flesh
   of his leg—through a rubber boot, trousers and thick woollen socks
   (Underhill, 1993). A young boy let into an enclosure unprotected to
   feed a wombat at a caravan park was charged, knocked over, and bitten
   and scratched all over.

   Wombats, while they look cute and cuddly when small, do not make good
   pets in the long run. They are solitary animals and prefer to stay that
   way when older.

   Unfortunately many people's only contact with wombats is on highways at
   night, when many are killed in accidents, often doing considerable
   damage to vehicles.

Wombats in popular culture

   Children's author Jackie French's illustrated storybook Diary of a
   Wombat (2002, ISBN 0-207-19995-7 ) has won numerous awards worldwide.
   Wombats in fiction and cartoons are often depicted as sluggish,
   irritable and dimwitted. One such wombat character is the eponymous
   hero of the author Ruth Park's Muddle Headed Wombat stories.

   The RSPCA of Australia ran a prominent television advertisement in
   which injured animals would run across the screen to classical music. A
   small injured wombat would repeatedly start to cross the screen, but
   then turn around and run back, at the end of the advertisement, it
   would quickly run across the screen. This, coupled with wombats'
   generally retiring nature when viewed during the day at zoos, has led
   to the popular misconception that wombats are timid and shy creatures.

   The webcomic Digger by Ursula Vernon stars a lovable, feisty young
   wombat, lost far from home after tunnelling into unknown magic.

   From 1990 to 1994, the Drama Society at the University of Otago ran an
   annual Wombats cabaret, a series of comedy shows, that passed into
   local legend. Taking inspiration from then current films and musicals,
   the cabarets included "Wombats", "Dick Wombat", "An Angel at my Wombat"
   and "Beverly Wombats 90210".

   In a short humorous poem attributed to Ogden Nash, the speaker finds
   wombats rather enigmatic, but asserts that he "would not engage the
   wombat in any form of mortal combat."

   "Fatso" the pet wombat was a popular character on the television show A
   Country Practice.

   A fictional wombat also called " Fatso" was created by comedians Roy
   and HG as an unnofficial mascot of the 2000 Summer Olympics.

   Wombat! was a children's television show on the Seven Network in the
   late 1980s.

   The Southern Hairy-noised Wombat (L. latifrons) is the official faunal
   emblem of the state of South Australia.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wombat"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
