If you ever encounter a cube shaped burrow during you time in Australia, it is likely that you have just stumbled on a wombat’s home. Indeed, the wombat’s burrow is the most uniquely shaped of any mammal in Australia. The wombats are skilled diggers and use their sharp claws and powerful legs to dig deep burrows fast. The burrows serve a dual role – protection from predators and temperature regulation during extreme weather conditions (winter cold or summer heat).
Like kangaroos and koalas, wombats are marsupials. They have strong muscular necks, large blunt heads with small eyes and ears. The wombat may be found in dry open areas or in the wet, partly forested areas along the coast. There are different species of wombat in Australia and the wombats found in drier areas are different from those that prefer the cooler coastal areas.
Wombats are nocturnal, appearing mostly during the night and spending most of their day sleeping in their burrows. It is not uncommon to see wombats crossing roads at night and is the reason why a good number end up as road kill.
Wombats can spend anything from 3 to 8 hours grazing on kangaroo grass, snow grass (also known as the tussocky) or wallaby grass. They can wander for up to 3km away from their burrows while looking for food. They eat the roots of trees and shrubs relying on their long chiseled front teeth to cut the plants.
Wombats are very protective of their feeding grounds and use their droppings and other scents to mark out their territories. If another wombat happens to stumble into another’s territory it will be intimidated by a combination of loud screeches and snorts. However, one or two wombats may share the same burrow.
Wombats are sexually mature from two years of age. The mating season starts in September and runs well into December. Mating ordinarily results in one offspring. The new born wombat weighs just 1gm and will craw into the mother’s pouch from the birth canal. The young one will stay in the mother’s pouch for anywhere between seven and ten months. Wombats can live for up to 27 years when in captivity and 15 years in the wild. Adults can weigh up to 40 kilos.
Over the years, the wombat population in Australia has had to contend with threats from droughts, floods, fires and parasites such as ticks. However, humans constitute the largest threat. First, numerous wombats are run over on roads each year. Second, the wombat’s natural habitat was cleared to make way for human settlement and agriculture.
This practice dated back to the earliest immigration of European settlers and went on unabated before the government put in place stronger controls around encroaching on wombat territory. Wombats have been pushed into mountains and rugged hills and some wombat species have in fact been declared extinct as a direct result of human encroachment.
Back to the Australian animals overview
References:
http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/animals/Wombats.htm
http://dannyreviews.com/h/Wombat.html
