Is it true that the Wombat shits cubes?

It is.
The wombat would be just another marsupial of no great interest to the world if not for its uncanny ability to crap cubes. Every night, the wombat makes a shit pile consisting of about 80-100 cubes the size of an ice cube, about two cubic centimetres.



This is Wombat poo

This absurd amount of cubed stools is not just a curious phenomenon of animal evolution. It has, believe it or not, a function: The large number of stinky wombat poo cubes help the animal mark its territory and recognise new potential partners. So yes, we can say that the mating rituals of this marsupial are somewhat "2 girls 1 cup".

A wombat is basically a solitary marsupial that lives underground in a burrow and has terrible sight - the Mister Magoo of the animal world. Maybe that's why it never comes out during the day, it would be easy prey. Instead of trusting its eyes as many animals do, it uses its sense of smell to navigate in the woods and bushes.

So if it “sees” by its powerful olfactory sense, it’s a good idea to also mark its territory and send messages to potential invaders using the sense of smell. And that's where this guy’s little shit cubes come into the story.

In addition to marking by odour or aromas produced by the hormones that the animals release, wombats curiously construct little shit castles in strategic places such as the top of plants, logs or rocks. Perhaps this distinctive way of positioning the faeces has caused them to evolve these square turds, as this block shape would hold the faeces in position in their precarious sites.

But if this already seems too bizarre, the question that remains is: what hellish type of arse can make a square shit?

To try to answer this intriguing question, one of the great unfathomable mysteries of humanity, Robyn Lawrence, created a model of the wombat’s digestive system.


As we can see from video Robin, the secret is not in the anus itself, but in a part corresponding to the final part of the wombat intestine that "shapes" the faecal ball into a specific shape, which is then cut by the animal‘s strong sphincter muscles, breaking the shit into pellets with straight sides.

And if you think that the bizarre show ends here, think again. Believe it or not there is a company that perceived a commercial potential for square wombat shit. Analyzing the constituency of this animal’s crap, they realized that it was a well pressed bundle of fibres. And with that, had the idea of making PAPER from wombat shit!

Darren Simpson, head of Creative Paper explains where the idea to recycle wombat dung into paper arose:

"In 2005 we made a paper with kangaroo shit. Shit paper is an idea I had for many years in Africa. They have been using elephant dung to make paper there. “Thus, Darrel knew in theory, that it would be feasible as long as the animal was feeding on a plant fibre. The idea for using wombat crap came from tourists.

"As people were coming through and we were showing them the samples of our paper, they would throw questions at you like 'can you make it from sheep poo or can you make it from koalas?'. And the one that kept popping up more than any other was the wombat. So we thought, 'Well, the customer obviously wants it, so let's take a chance, and it just so happened that wombat dung really gives a very good result in terms of paper."


"I can’t imagine it's from shit! Looks good, "said a tourist.”I thought it would be brown but is white,” said another."

Despite the good result, Simpson says there are some drawbacks to the production of paper made from wombat crap.

“When we are boiling it, it does smell horrific as you can imagine, but once it has been sterilized and rinsed properly there's no scent left to it. If anything it just gives you a nice organic smell.”

Sometimes the paper turns out bright green, sometimes it's brown, but it always makes the tourists smile.