{"id":356061,"date":"2025-12-18T12:48:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T12:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/356061\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T12:48:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T12:48:12","slug":"scientists-discover-why-their-droppings-are-cube-shaped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/356061\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists discover why their droppings are cube-shaped"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Studying the bare-nosed wombat (Vombatus ursinus), the researchers first examined the skull structure of the animals. Four wombats that had been injured in road collisions were euthanised, allowing the researchers to do cranial dissections.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A wombat looking over a fence.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/851e11d35603a43813d5dadda221c4f5d569a466.jpeg\" height=\"390\" width=\"584\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A wombat looking over a fence.Credit: Getty Images\/iStockphoto<\/p>\n<p>They found the wombats have a \u201cvomeronasal organ\u201d, sometimes described as a second nose. Other animals \u2013 such as snakes, lizards, rodents, horses, cattle, dogs, cats, lemurs and elephants \u2013 also have this organ, and research has found its purpose is to detect pheromones and other semi-volatile chemicals for social cues, mating, and predator or prey detection.<\/p>\n<p>The research also included field surveys on Maria Island in Tasmania, where McMahon collected wombat scat. Chemical analysis suggested that the droppings were individually distinct, and was probably how the short-sighted animals could tell each other apart.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A bare-nosed wombat in Port Arthur.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/73f85247e7ba3084d8d3618dfc4c50a6388dce80.jpeg\" height=\"390\" width=\"584\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A bare-nosed wombat in Port Arthur.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>McMahon also collected scat and transported it to a latrine more than 500 metres from the first location. She observed wombats spent a long time investigating the new smells.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was really exciting to look at their chemical composition and find that they were individually distinct,\u201d McMahon said. \u201cThat linked in so beautifully with our experimental testing, showing that they did tend to investigate for longer when new scents were introduced to their landscape from unfamiliar wombats.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\" \" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/27e71c6e9033629f8009e2d27036bc8040874d17.jpeg\" height=\"283\" width=\"283\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Credit: Matt Golding<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn a way they\u2019re not solitary, they\u2019re just not having the physical contact, but they\u2019re having the social contact through odour to know who\u2019s around and who\u2019s doing what.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Professor Peter Banks, a biologist at the University of Sydney who was not part of the research, said several species use latrines as socialisation centres and send messages through odour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Studying the bare-nosed wombat (Vombatus ursinus), the researchers first examined the skull structure of the animals. Four wombats&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":["post-356061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}