Wombats

Names & Nicknames: Wombats or the bulldozers of the bush. Male wombats are known as Jacks and females are known as Jills.

Size: The common wombat holds the highly illustrious title of the largest burrowing herbivore in the world. It can grow over a metre in length and weigh almost 40kg. The other two species aren't far behind being just a little smaller, sort of like an extra chunky bulldog.

Smell: Wombats have a keen sense of smell and may use it to avoid their main predator, the dingo. They also use smell to communicate, leaving scent trails for other wombats to pick up on by squirting a bit of brownish liquid from a special scent gland in their bum. For more facts about brown stuff that comes from their bum, read on.

Communication: Wombats don’t have the best eyesight, so alongside smells (see above) they also use sounds for communication. These can range from an aggressive ‘chikker chikker’ to a low growl or even a soft ‘huh huh’ noise that baby wombats make when they have lost their mum.

Favourite Hangout: The wonderful land of Australia. Where exactly depends on the species of wombat, with common wombats preferring the East and South East coastal regions, including the island of Tasmania, whereas their Southern Hairy-nosed cousins are only found in fragmented pockets in the South. The critically endangered northern hairy-nosed wombat is restricted to only a few inland pockets in the balmy North/Northeast Australia.

Favourite Snack: They are called the bulldozer of the bush for a reason: their love for veggies. These furballs love munching through grasses, plants, roots, bark, and mosses.

Eating Habits: Wombats prefer to do their munching at night when temperatures are cooler. They chomp through huge amounts of veggies with their strong jaws and sharp teeth. Unlike a tasty superfood salad you might see on TikTok, the veggies that wombats eat aren't actually that nutritious. So, to get the most bang for their buck, they have an exceptionally long colon that allows them to extract the maximum goodness.

Toilet Humour: Wombats poo is cubed. No really, they poop out little bricks – up to 100 per night! The unique structure of their intestines is responsible for these little smelly cubes. Who knew wombats loved Minecraft so much?

Love Language: Wombat love can be… intense. During courtship, wombats will chase, claw at and bite each other. The females especially like to go for a big bite on the bum of the male. Why not?

If you see them: Despite their chunky, lovable appearance, wombats can move surprisingly quick when they want to, up to 40 kilometres per hour in fact. So while they may seem cute and cuddly, if you do see one, keep your distance and appreciate that gorgeous behind from a distance!

Red Flags: Climate change, habitat loss, traffic accidents, and persecution. They're also threatened by invasive species such as dogs and foxes eating them. However, dogs and foxes aren't the worst thing that was introduced to Australia for wombats, that would be mange, a disease thought to have come from European settlers around 200 years ago. It's a skin disease caused by little mites that causes itching, hair loss, and even death.

Epic Journeys: Wombats don't get out much during the day, they're nocturnal, after all, preferring to snooze in their burrows until night falls and it gets cooler. Once the moon is up it's their time to shine, and they can travel up to 3km per night to snaffle all the veggies they can.

Glow-up: Wombats are one of those unique mammals known as marsupials. Just like their famous bouncy cousins, the kangaroos, they raise their young in a pouch. Once an embryo has developed for around a month in the womb, it will go to the pouch and continue to grow for the next 5 months. What makes this pouch different from other marsupials like the roos? Well, a wombat's pouch faces backwards so their joey doesn't get hit with dirt as she is burrowing, how thoughtful!

Facts: Their main form of defence is their voluptuous behinds. These rock-hard rumps are made of thick cartilage, fat, skin, and fur, and can withstand bites and scratches from pesky predators, or even crush a predator's skull if they try to force their way into a wombat's burrow.

Who are they in the friendship group: A bit of a loner who loves a snack but wow they thicc.