Wombat

Echuca Moama Wildlife

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.

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.

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 suffocating the predator. 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.

There are three species of wombats:

Common Wombat 

The Common Wombat (Vombatus ursinus), also known as the Coarse-haired Wombat, is one of three species of wombat and the only one in the Vombatus genus. It is widespread in the cooler and better watered parts of southern and eastern Australia, and in mountain districts as far north as the south of Queensland, but is declining in Western Victoria and South Australia. The Common Wombat can breed every two years and produce a single joey, which leaves the backwards facing pouch after nine to eleven months (weighing between 3.5 and 6.5 kilograms). The joey is weaned at around 12 to 15 months of age and is usually independent at 18 months of age.

Bass Strait subspecies

The Bass Strait subspecies (Vombatus ursinus ursinus) is only found on Flinders Island to the north of Tasmania. Its population was estimated at 4000 in 1996.

Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat

The Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus latifrons) is one of three species of wombats. It is found in scattered areas of semi-arid scrub and mallee from the eastern Nullarbor Plain to the New South Wales border area. It is the smallest wombat at around 775 to 935 mm and 20 to 32 kg, and the young often do not survive dry seasons. It is classified as vulnerable by the local authorities: a healthy population still remains but appears to be ageing; it is feared that the consistently sparse rainfall of recent years has prevented successful breeding. (It takes three consecutive good seasons for a Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat to reach near-adulthood.) Wombat specialists are concerned that a continuation of the current trend to dryer climate in arid Southern Australia could be a serious threat to the Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat.

Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat  

The Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus krefftii), also known as the Yaminon, is one of three species of wombats. It was found across New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland as recently as 100 years ago, but is now restricted to a 3 km² range within the 32 km² Epping Forest National Park in Queensland. It is probably the rarest large mammal in the world and is critically endangered. It is slightly larger than the Common Wombat and able to breed somewhat faster (two young every three years). Its habitat has become infested with African buffel grass, which out-competes the native grasses the Yaminon prefers to feed on. A two metre-high predator-proof fence was constructed around 25 km² of the park in 2000, but captive breeding and translocation programs have been abandoned for the time being because the population in the sole remaining Yaminon colony is considered too small to allow the safe removal of the 15 or 20 individuals needed to start a new wild colony, and because more than a decade of captive breeding research with Common and Southern Hairy-nosed Wombats has produced only a handful of successful births.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org