Thursday, March 3, 2011

Wombats are Weird and Cute!

If you don't know what a wombat is, then get ready for cute!


Wombats have short legs, ears, and tails, similar to pikas (which I talked about in my very first post). They are marsupials, like koalas and kangaroos. Wombats live in foresty and mountainy areas of Australia and Tasmania. They also live in areas called a "heath", which is covered in dwarf, or really tiny, shrubs.







Wombats move pretty slowly and have slow metabolism. It can take about two weeks for a wombat to digest its food!






Two cute and cuddly wombats! Wombats are so cute that I even have a stuffed toy wombat :)












Wombats like nibbling on herbs, shrubs, bark, roots and grasses. They have the perfect teeth for chewing through tough vegetation.







Wombats dig their own burrows to live in, which sounds pretty cozy and cuddly to me. They have big front teeth and claws so they can make these homes.

When a predator tries to catch a wombat, the fuzzy little animal will run into a tunnel and block the entrance with its bum! Their bum area is made of cartilage, so it's hard and cannot be bitten through!





A mommy and baby wombat, staying close for company.

Wombats are so cool that they even have their own holiday, October 22nd!

2 comments:

  1. Tasmania is actually part of Australia. It is the southernmost state.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's politically part of Australia, but not physically. I'm not discussing anything political so I refer to them separately. Small islands are often very different biologically from the mainland, so I find that it's important to make a distinction.

    ReplyDelete

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