Wombat Facts

About the wombat

Wombats live in forests, mountains and heathland across southern and eastern Australia, including Tasmania, plus one isolated patch of about 300 ha inside central Queensland's Epping Forest National Park. Living species reach about one meter long and weigh 20 to 35 kg, with tiny stubby tails. Their teeth have no roots and never stop growing, a lot like a rodent's incisors.

Mostly active at dusk and night, wombats may also come out to graze on cool or cloudy days. They eat grasses, sedges, herbs, bark and roots. Fences barely slow them, since they push through or dig under. Their droppings are cube-shaped, and a single wombat leaves 80 to 100 of them a night, stacking them to mark territory and attract mates.

Did you know?

• Research on cube-shaped wombat poop won a 2019 Ig Nobel Prize in Physics.
• An extinct giant wombat, Phascolonus, may have weighed up to 360 kg.
• Wombats may have split from other Australian marsupials as long as 40 million years ago.