wombats
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Wombats
Wombats are Australian marsupials. They are rather rotund quadrupeds with short powerful muscular legs. Wombats are found in South Eastern Australia and Tasmania.
They live in forests, mountains and heathland areas, prefering the cooler climate of the south.
There are three species:
Common Wombat (Vombatus ursinus)
Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus latifrons)
Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus krefftii)
Wombats
Description
Wombats are Australian marsupials that are found in South Eastern Australia and Tasmania.Wombats are muscular and rather rotund. They have thick soft fur that is brown to grey-black in colour. Their legs are short and powerful and they have a very short tail. The head is large with a large brain, small ears and eyes and a short muscular neck. Length is about 1m and weight ranges from 20 to 35 kgs. Females are generally larger than males.
Teeth grow continuosly.
The wombats pouch opens to the rear so that when the wombat is digging burrows the dirt does not got all over the baby in the pouch.
Wombats have powerful claws and rodent like sharp teeth which are used to dig extensive burrow systems underground.
They have a tough backside made of cartilage which they use to defend themselves from predators if they are followed into the burrow.
The backside is hard to bite and as the predator tries to come over the top of the wombat, the wombat uses his poweful legs to crush the predator against the ceiling of the burrow.
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Wombats
Behaviour, Diet and Breeding
Wombats are nocturnal. They spend half of the night grazing on food travelling up 3km per night looking for food.They have a very slow metabolism and digestion takes about 14 days, which helps them to survive in tough times.
They are slow moving but will run when threatened.
Sometimes they will venture out during the day if it is overcast and cold, but they are not often seen during the day.
They are great diggers building extensive burrows up to 30m long and several metres deep.
Wombats are happy to share the burrow with other wombats but will not share their feeding ground. A wombats territory can cover about 23ha. Hairy-noses have smaller territories of about 4ha.
Wombats leave their droppings (called scats) outside the entrances to their burrows so that they can find their burrow easily during the night. These scats also let other wombats know that the burrow is occupied.
Wombats clean themselves by taking a dust bath. They lie on the side and scoop sand or dirt over themselves. They can also swim if they have to.
Life span of wombats range from 15 years in the wild to 27 years in captivity.
Diet
Wombats are herbivores and eat native grasses,roots of shrubs and trees,herbs and bark.
Breeding
Wombats become sexually mature at 18 months.
Females give birth to 1 baby in the spring. Gestation last only one month. The baby weighs only 1g and is 3cm long. The baby crawls from the birth canal to the pouch. The baby can stay in the pouch for 7 to 10 months and weaned at 15 months.
Wombats
Threats and Conservation
Dingoes and Tasmanian Devils are the main predators of Wombats. Wombats are also killed by wild dogs, cars and farmers as wombats are great at wrecking fencing.Wombats are a protected and endangered.
They are also endangered because of a loss of habitat and competition for food by introduced animals such as cattle, sheep and rabbits.
The Northern Hairy-Nosed wombat is critically endangered.
It is the largest wombat and found only in a small area in Queensland.
The last known colony lives in 300ha in the Epping Forest. In 2000-2001 dingoes killed 10 hairy-noses in this forest. The forest is now fenced to keep out cattle, sheep and dingoes. Access is restricted only to Park Managers and researchers.
The forest is protected from bushfires by fire breaks and spot burning of small areas. When cattle where removed in 1982, wombat numbers increased from 35 to 70 in 1989. Numbers remained steady during a major drought. After some years of good rainfall numbers increased to 110.
There are programs in place to remove buffel grass and to improve the supply of native grasses to the area.
A captive breeding program of Southern-Hairy Nosed wombats is underway. If this program is successful it will be applied to the Northern Hairy-Noses.
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Adventures of Little Wombat by Vicki Churchill, Angela McAllister
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One Woolly Wombat by Rod Trinca
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A Fragile Balance: The Extraordinary Story of Australian Marsupials by Christopher Dickman
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Predators with Pouches: The Biology of Carnivorous Marsupials by Menna Jones, Mike Archer, Chris Dickman
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Link List
- Wombat Information Center
- Information and pictures of the Common and Hairy-nosed wombat, including articles about diet, habitat, distribution, behavior, life cycle, ...
- Wombat Printout- EnchantedLearning.com
- The Wombat is a rare, burrowing marsupial from Australia. It is a thick-set, nocturnal herbivore.
- Wombat
- Wombats are an australian marsupial. ... Young Wombats are born singly and each is carried in its mother's pouch. There are three species of Wombats (all ...
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- Australia had tree-climbing sheep-sized marsupials
- The 70 kilogram (154 pound) diprotodontoids were most closely related to wombats, a furry ground-dwelling animal only found in Australia, said Black, who specialises in the diversity and evolution of the country's marsupials. Her research has focused ...
- Australia had tree-climbing sheep-sized marsupials
- The 70 kilogram (154 pound) diprotodontoids were most closely related to wombats, a furry ground-dwelling animal only found in Australia, said Black, who specialises in the diversity and evolution of the country's marsupials. Her research has focused ...
- 'Massive' marsupials lived in Australia
- The 70kg diprotodontoids were most closely related to wombats, a furry ground-dwelling animal only found in Australia, said Black, who specialises in the diversity and evolution of the country's marsupials. Her research has focused on a 15 ...
- Marsupial lion 'stalks' Tweed
- Fossils indicate the marsupial lion was the largest meat-eating mammal known to have ever existed in Australia. The beasts were about 75cm high at the shoulder and about 150cm from head to tail and had retractable claws, a trait unique to marsupials.
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Reader Feedback
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brynimagire
Mar 27, 2012 @ 7:19 am | delete
- Nice lens ! Beautiful creatures !
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GonnaFly
May 2, 2010 @ 5:43 pm | delete
- I love these beautiful creatures. We certainly have some unique animals here in Australia.
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