Wombats aren’t the only animals with weird poos
Bec Crew
Bec Crew
Wombats definitely have weird poops. While so many marsupials are doing spherical or cylindrical scats, wombats are out here doing cubes.
Scientists used to think the cube-shaped scat was formed as it passes through the rectum – the ‘square sphincter’ hypothesis, if you will. But back in 2018, a team in the US found evidence to suggest that it happens up in the intestines. Turns out, uneven elasticity in different sections of the colon can shape soft material into cubes.
Three years later, University of Tasmania wildlife ecologist Scott Carver added to this finding by dissecting wombat intestines and examining the series of stiff and flexible channels that moulded the poop into shape as it made its way through.
Carver thinks the main reason for having cubed poops is communication – a cube-shaped poop is much less likely to roll off the rock you carefully positioned it on to send another wombat a message.
Wombats might be the only animals with cube-shaped scats, but there are plenty of other strange bowel movements being performed by Australian animals.
Quolls, for example, have sparkly scats – scats that shine in the sun. Why? Insects are an important part of a quoll’s diet, but some parts of an insect aren’t easily digestible, such as their wings and exoskeleton. So, if a quoll eats a cicada, the cicada’s shiny wings might end up in their poop.
During summer, quoll scats can become extra sparkly because that’s when brightly coloured Christmas beetles are out and about. Eat enough of those things and your poop would light up like a Christmas tree, too.
If you want messy, we’ve got messy. Arguably the messiest scat from an Australian animal is the flying fox’s. Not only are flying fox droppings basically liquid, and not only do flying foxes poop all the time, but they do it from a height, and often mid-flight.
Flying fox droppings might be messy, but the good news is they’re not as bad as some people think. There’s an urban legend that flying‐fox scat can strip paint from cars and houses, but they’re actually less corrosive than bird droppings.
And finally, we’ve got the Tasmanian devil. Notorious for eating the most horrendous stuff, it’d be no surprise to anyone that Tassie devil poops smell awful. They don’t just smell bad – they can be spiky, too. Tasmanian devil scats have been found that contain fully intact echidna spines!
All of this makes cubes sound positively banal.
