The land down under has its fair share of natural wonders that are captivating, and sometimes downright frightening. Australia's biodiversity is so unique that most of the one million species of flora and fauna found there occur nowhere else in the world.
Marsupials are a group of mammals that lack placentas -- undeveloped offspring are birthed and then nurtured within in-built pouches. Once widespread across the globe, most lineages of early marsupials have long since gone extinct. However, one lineage colonized Australia around 50 million years ago and evolved independently after the continent separated from Antarctica. Free of competition from other mammals, around 70% of the world's marsupial species now thrive in Australia.
The wombat is one such species, and its secret weapon in both love and conflict is its unique superpower: its butt.
At first glance, a wombat might look adorable, with its furry stout body and short legs. Even their poop is "cute" -- wombats have unique intestines that make them the only animals to produce cube-shaped poop.
Don't be fooled though -- an adult wombat can weigh up to 90 pounds, sprint at a speed of 25 mph and do some serious damage if it choses to.
Despite being completely herbivorous, wombats are built like predators. They are quite muscular and have sharp claws and teeth that grow continuously till they die.
Dingoes (a dog-like canine) and Tasmanian devils are the major predators of an adult wombat, while the young ones may get snatched by eagles, owls and other carnivorous marsupials like the quoll.
If attacked, a wombat's first line of defense is an unexpected one. It will promptly turn around and display its rump to the offender. This is a surprising instinct for any animal, given that turning your back on your attacker is usually the most inadvisable step one can take.
Its hardened butt is so effective in deterring predators that scientists initially thought it possessed a cartilaginous plate on its rear. This myth was broken by a November 2023 paper in Annual Review of Animal Biosciences on common wombats, explaining that it's actually some really tough fibrous connective tissues that achieve the impervious quality.
Wombats dig several burrows in their territory, and will quickly slip into one of these if disturbed, with its rump plugging the entry of the burrow. The rump can withstand bites, scratches and other forms of attack effectively, until the predator tires out and moves on.
The broken skulls of foxes and dingoes have often been found near wombat burrows, eliciting rumors that wombats can even swing their butts to crush the skulls of predators. There isn't enough research to confirm this, but one wombat scientist from the University of Adelaide thinks they are more than capable of doing so.
Another theory is that since wombats habitually take over abandoned burrows, it may have simply been cleaning out remains found inside.
Wombat rumps not only serve as an unusual defense strategy, but are also an integral part of their mating habits. Male common wombats have been observed aggressively chasing females and leaving deep, painful bites on their rumps, puncturing their skin. Females retaliated by throwing powerful kicks, but often end up being trapped in burrows by the males for copulation.
It's not just the males that are hostile in their approach -- when females are in the most fertile time of their reproductive cycles, they too will chase and bite the rumps of males.
The abundance of space required for these crude mating rituals to play out have made the captive breeding of marsupials particularly challenging. Despite invoking unpleasant feelings to the onlooker, the chasing, biting and kicking seem to be pertinent for wombats' reproduction.
All three species of wombats are threatened in Australia, largely by human interventions. Less than 200 northern hairy-nosed wombats remain in small pockets of the wild. Deforestation, overgrazing, droughts, predation by wild dogs and other threats loom over the future of this eccentric animal. Their populations have dwindled so much that the common wombat is no longer considered common.
In the 1900s, wombats were even eaten by early Australian settlers in the form of a stew. During this time, they were considered pests thanks to their then-large populations, and the killing of these fascinating animals was encouraged. Today, they are protected by the law.