![]() ![]() “A cross-section of the wombat’s intestine is like a rubber band with two ends kept slightly taut and the center section drooping. A 2-D mathematical model created from the wombat’s intestinal tract showed how the organ expanded and contracted during digestion-and eventually squeezed out the excrement, reports Science. To build on those results and fully understand how the wombat’s soft intestinal walls created sharp cube-like edges in the poop, Yang and her team dissected two wombats and examined the texture and structure of the intestinal tissue, reports Tess Joosse for Science. ![]() In 2018, study co-author Patricia Yang, a mechanical engineer at Georgia Institute of Technology, and her team previously found that the cube-shaped poop formed at the end of the wombat’s digestive process and that the wombat’s intestinal wall contained elastic-like properties, reports Gizmodo. After the wombat defecates, the furry critter collects the two centimeter-sized cubes and places them around their territory, possibly to communicate with other wombats or attract mates, reports George Dvorsky for Gizmodo. But how the bare-nosed wombat excretes poop in the shape of cubes has mystified scientists until now.Ī study published last month in Soft Matter reveals how the wombat’s intestines constrict to shape the scat.īare-nosed wombats can excrete four to eight scat pieces at a time and may poop up to 100 cubes a day. Burrowed beneath Australian forests, grasslands, and mountainous regions, the bare-nosed wombat ( Vombatus ursinus ) feeds primarily on grasses-and poops cubes.
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