Dictionary:

wombat

  (wŏm'băt')

Any of several stocky burrowing Australian marsupials of the family Vombatidae, somewhat resembling a small bear and feeding mainly on grass, leaves, and roots.

[Dharuk wambad.]

(Vombatidae)

Class: Mammalia

Order: Diprotodontia

Suborder: Vombatiformes

Family: Vombatidae

Thumbnail description
Wombats are large burrowing herbivores, stocky with a broad massive head and short powerful limbs; the ears are small and the tail insignificant.

Size
39.4 in (1.0 m); 55–88 lb (25–40 kg)

Number of genera, species
2 genera; 3 species

Habitat
Woodlands

Conservation status
Critically Endangered: 1 species

Distribution
Southeastern Australia

Evolution and systematics

There are only three living species of wombats, but the family was more diverse in the Pleistocene (between about two million years ago [mya] and 10,000 years ago), when it was represented by a total of six genera and nine species. Some of the extinct species were much larger than the living species. Phascalonus gigas, for example, had a skull 16 in (40 cm) in length and may have stood about 39.4 in (1 m) high and weighed 441 lb (200 kg).

Whether these giant wombats dug burrows is unknown; they do not seem to have been as well-adapted for burrowing as their living relatives, and may only have dug short burrows for resting. The earliest fossil wombats are of early Miocene age. Wombats arose from the same stock that produced the kangaroos and possums, and their closest living relative is the koala.

Physical characteristics

The three living species of wombats are similar in size, and all have the same stocky body form. The two hairy-nosed wombats (Lasiorhinus) differ from the common wombat (Vombatus ursinus) in having a hairy covering over the rhinarium. They also have longer pointed ears and finer fur. The hairy-nosed wombats are silver-gray, but the common wombat varies in color from pale gray to rich brown. Males and females are similar in appearance.

The skeletal characters of wombats are well-suited for digging. In particular, the pectoral girdle is heavy and strong and the humerus is broad and massive. This makes the fore-arms very powerful, and the forepaws are broad and have strong claws.

Distribution

Wombats occur in southeastern Australia, and are reasonably widespread in New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia. The northern hairy-nosed wombat (L. krefftii) is found just to the north of the tropic of Capricorn, and the southern hairy-nosed wombat (L. latifrons) has isolated populations in Western Australia.

Habitat

The two species of hairy-nosed wombats live in open woodlands, shrublands, and grasslands in semi-arid habitats, and the southern hairy-nosed wombat extends into arid regions on the Nullarbor Plain. The common wombat lives in forests and woodlands in areas of higher rainfall.

Behavior

Wombats dig by scratching with the forepaws and flinging soil behind them; the piled-up soil is then bulldozed clear of the burrow as the animal backs out of the entrance. Wombat burrows can be huge. They may consist of 98 ft (30 m) or more of tunnel length, and have several entrances as well as side tunnels and resting chambers. Warrens of the southern hairy-nosed wombat are particularly complex, and probably the same warren is used and expanded by many generations of wombats. The tunnels are wide enough to accommodate a lightly built adult human (no reasonable person would ever risk crawling down a wombat burrow, but a 15 year old boy explored many burrows of the common wombat in 1960 and wrote up his observations in a now-famous article in his school magazine).

Individuals usually feed alone, but in the southern hairy-nosed wombat many animals may share the same warren. Similarly, in the northern hairy-nosed wombat burrows occur in clusters, and a group of up to 12 wombats makes common use of each cluster of burrows. However, even when two individuals use the same burrow it seems that they occupy different sections of it. There is good evidence indicating that both the female northern hairy-nosed wombat and the female common wombat are more likely to disperse from their home burrow at some stage of their lives, while the males are more philopatric. This is unusual—in most mammals dispersal is male-biased. This suggests that the groups of individuals that occupy burrow clusters in the northern hairy-nosed wombat are composed of related males and unrelated females. It is still not known at what age females disperse in the common wombat, but in the northern hairy-nosed wombat dispersal has been observed by breeding adult females.

Feeding ecology and diet

Wombats are specialized grazers. They have open-rooted teeth that grow throughout life, compensating for tooth wear caused by eating abrasive grasses. The jaws are massive, and deliver powerful, short chewing strokes that reduce their fibrous food to small particles. Gut capacity is large, and the colon is expanded to house cellulose-digesting microorganisms. Food is held in the gut for long periods (70 hours or so) to maximize the breakdown of fiber.

Wombats feed mainly at night, and rest deep in their burrows during the day. Their burrows provide them with refuge from such predators as dingoes and also with protection from extreme temperatures and dry conditions. Wombats have low basal metabolic rates; this, together with the slow rate of passage of food through the gut and the efficiency with which they digest their food, means that they spend less time feeding than other grazers of their body size and they can afford to spend most of their time in their burrows. Their home ranges are small for a herbivore of their body size, typically less than 49 acres (20 ha).

Reproductive biology

The single young is born after a gestation of about 22 days, and stays in the pouch for six to nine months. It remains dependent on its mother for at least a year after leaving the pouch. Wombats have backward-opening pouches. There is no evidence of pair-bonding and there is presumably competition among males for the opportunity to mate with females, but no details of this are known.

Conservation status

The common wombat and southern hairy-nosed wombat are secure, although the ranges of both species have contracted and fragmented since European settlement. The northern hairy-nosed wombat is extremely rare. It has only been recorded in historic times from three localities, and is extinct from two of these as of the early twentieth century. Probably, the major cause of its decline was competition for pasture from sheep and cattle. The remaining population is protected within Epping Forest National Park in central Queensland. In 2000 the size of this last population was estimated to be 116 individuals. This species is classed as endangered under Queensland State legislation and Australian Federal legislation.

Significance to humans

Wombats do not feature strongly in Aboriginal mythology. The southern hairy-nosed wombat and common wombat are sometimes regarded as pests of agriculture, because of the damage they cause to crops and fences. None of the species has commercial value. By and large, however, wombats are regarded with deep affection in Australia. They feature in many children's stories, beginning with Ruth Park's classic Muddle-Headed Wombat series from the 1960s. There was also a vogue for wombats in Britain in the mid-nineteenth century. The painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti regarded them as "the most beautiful of God's creatures;" when one of his two pet wombats died in 1869 he commemorated it with a touching drawing entitled Self-portrait of the artist weeping at the wombat's tomb.

Species accounts

Resources

Long, J., M. Archer, T. Flannery, and S. Hand. Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2002.

Wells, R. T., and P. A. Pridmore. Wombats. Sydney: Surrey Beatty & Sons, 1998.

Woodford, J. The Secret Life of Wombats. Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2001.

Banks, S. C., L. F. Skerratt, and A. C. Taylor. "Female dispersal and relatedness structure in common wombats (Vombatus ursinus)." Journal of Zoology 256 (2002): 389–399.

[Article by: Christopher Johnson, PhD]

(click to enlarge)
Common wombat (Vombatus ursinus). (credit: Warren Garst-Tom Stack and Associates)

Either of two species (family Vombatidae) of nocturnal Australian marsupials that are heavily built, 28 – 47 in. (70 – 120 cm) long, and tailless. The single newborn develops in the mother's pouch for about five months. Wombats eat grasses, tree bark, and shrub roots. They make a grassy nest at the end of a long burrow. The common wombat (Vombatus ursinus) of southeastern Australia and Tasmania, considered a pest, has coarse dark hair and short ears. The rare Queensland hairy-nosed wombat (Lasiorhinus barnardi) has fine fur and longer ears; protected by law, the population lives principally in a national park.

For more information on wombat, visit Britannica.com.

A thickset, nocturnal, herbivorous, burrowing marsupial with short legs and no tail. It is solitary and long-lived and peculiar to Australia. Called also Vombatus ursinus.

Wombats
Common Wombat in the snow
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Infraclass: Marsupialia Order: Diprotodontia Suborder: Vombatiformes Family: Vombatidae Burnett, 1829
Genera and Species
Vombatus Vombatus ursinus Lasiorhinus Lasiorhinus latifrons Lasiorhinus krefftii †Rhizophascolomus †Phascolonus †Warendja †Ramasayia

Wombats are Australian marsupials; they are short-legged, muscular quadrupeds, approximately one metre (3 feet) in length with a very short tail. The name wombat comes from the Eora Aboriginal community who were the original inhabitants of the Sydney area. Wombats dig extensive burrow systems with rodent-like front teeth and powerful claws. Although mainly crepuscular and nocturnal, wombats will also venture out to feed on cool or overcast days. They are not as commonly seen as many animals, but leave ample evidence of their passage, treating fences as a minor inconvenience to be gone through or under and leaving distinctive cubic scats. Wombats are herbivores, their diet consisting mostly of grasses, sedges, herbs, bark and roots. They are preyed on by the Tasmanian Devil. Their fur colour can vary from a sandy colour to brown, or from grey to black.

History

Wombats, like all the larger living marsupials, are part of the Diprotodontia. The ancestors of modern wombats evolved sometime between 55 and 26 million years ago (no useful fossil record has yet been found for this period). About 12 species flourished well into the ice ages. Among the several diprotodon (giant wombat) species was the largest marsupial to have ever lived. The earliest human inhabitants of Australia arrived while diprotodons were still common. The Aborigine are believed to have brought about their extinction through hunting, habitat alteration, or possibly both.

Ecology and behavior

Wombats have an extraordinarily slow metabolism, taking around 14 days to complete digestion. They generally move slowly, but when threatened they can reach up to 40 km/h and maintain that speed for up to 90 seconds.

When attacked, they can summon immense reserves of strength — one defense of a wombat against a predator (such as a Dingo) underground is to crush it against the roof of the tunnel until the wombat has caused the predator to cease breathing. Its primary defense is its toughened rear hide with most of the posterior made of cartilage. This combined with its lack of a meaningful tail presents a difficult-to-bite target for any enemy who follows the wombat into its tunnel.

Species

There are three species, each around a metre in length and weighing between 20 and 35 kg (44 to 77 pounds):

• Common Wombat (Vombatus ursinus)
• Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus latifrons)
• Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat or Yaminon (Lasiorhinus krefftii)

Wombats and humans

They can be awkwardly tamed in a captive situation, and even coaxed to be patted and held. Many parks, zoos and other tourist set-ups across Australia have wombats for show to the public. Wombats are quite popular in the zoos in which they are present.

However, this lack of fear also means that they may display acts of aggression if provoked, or if they are simply in a bad mood. Its sheer weight makes a charging wombat capable of knocking an average-sized man over, and their sharp teeth and powerful jaws can result in severe wounds. The naturalist Harry Frauca once received a bite 2 cm deep into the flesh of his leg—through a rubber boot, trousers and thick woollen socks (Underhill, 1993). A young boy let into an enclosure unprotected to feed a wombat at a caravan park was charged, knocked over, bitten, and scratched all over. [1]

Gallery

Wombat grazing at dusk in Narawntapu National Park, Tasmania. Tasmania's cooler climate makes all its creatures furrier than their cousins in mainland Australia.

A pair of wombats.

A wombat at the Australia Zoo.

A wombat on a leash, being walked at the Australia Zoo.

Further reading

• The Death of a Wombat, Ivan Smith, drawings by Clifton Pugh, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973, hardcover, 62 pages, ISBN 0-684-13538-8. A humble wombat meets a tragic end during a fire.
• Wombats, Barbara Triggs, Houghton Mifflin Australia Pty, 1990, ISBN 0-86770-114-5. Facts and photographs of wombats for children.
• The Wombat: Common Wombats in Australia, Barbara Triggs, University of New South Wales Press, 1996, ISBN 0-86840-263-X.
• The Secret Life of Wombats, James Woodford, Text Publishing, 2002, ISBN 1-877008-43-5.

References

• Groves, Colin (16 November 2005). in Wilson, D. E., and Reeder, D. M. (eds): Mammal Species of the World, 3rd edition, Johns Hopkins University Press, 43-44. ISBN 0-801-88221-4. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Vombatidae

• South Australian Government Faunal Emblem (official website)
• Wombania's Wombat Information Index
• Russell The Wombat's Burrow
• Fauna of Australia, Vombatidae by R. T. Wells

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
n. - vombat

Nederlands (Dutch)
buideldier

Français (French)
n. - wombat, phascolome

Deutsch (German)
n. - (zo.) Wombat

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (ζωολ.) φασκωλόμυς

Italiano (Italian)
vombato

Português (Portuguese)
n. - vombate (m) (Zool.)

Русский (Russian)
вомбат (австралийское животное)

Español (Spanish)
n. - uombat, oso australiano

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - pungdjur (Austr.)

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
袋熊

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 袋熊

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 웜바트(오스트레일리아산의 유대 동물)

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - フクログマモドキ, ウォムバット, ウォムバットの毛皮

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) الومبت أي حيوان من ذوات الجراب شبه بالدب‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮וומבט (חיית-כיס אוסטרלית)‬

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