Speaking of the well-known Australian animals, in addition to the koalas and kangaroos that have always been famous in the world, the internet red wombat is also one. Although they are called wombats, they have nothing to do with them except that they are mammals. However, the bear definitely does not want to find such a "humble" as a relative, sorry for his own plagiarism.
In stark contrast to bears' usual fierceness and cruelty, they not only do not kill, but also become the patron saints of Australian trinkets.
In 2019, the wildfires that swept across Australia, resulting in the deaths of billions of animals, became Australia's eternal pain and the world's indelible pain. However, our protagonist, the wombat, was credited with that fire. The reasons behind it are heartwarming.
In the news during that time, it was reported that in order to save the animals that were burned by the fire, the wombats not only frantically dug tunnels to provide shelter for other animals, but also desperately drove other animals into their own tunnels. Of course, this kind of touching and humane behavior of wombats certainly can't do it, but the tunnels they dig do save a lot of small animals.
The title of "Jungle Bulldozer" is also well deserved. In order to maximize their burrowing skills, they have adjusted the position of their nursery bags to the back of their butts, so that they will not bury their babies when digging holes. In addition to digging their own holes, the holes dug by their ancestors will also be passed down for generations, and the family will never lack a house, so in the event of a disaster, other animals will come in to take refuge, and they will not refuse.
Because of the large heat capacity of the soil, the fire resistance of these caves is also very good, and most importantly, the absolute performance is also quite first-class, and the temperature difference between day and night can be controlled within 1 degree, while on the ground, the temperature difference can reach 24 degrees. When the fire came, it was a perfect "bomb shelter".
However, the most amazing thing is not their punching technique, but their un-legendary trick: pulling the sticky into a cube.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > the only animal that can pull a square poop</h1>
People have been fascinated by the characteristics of wombats producing square poop, and have struggled for many years without figuring out why. At first people wondered if it was because their anus was square. Therefore, when it was about to be "born", it was squeezed by the anus and became a square. But this statement is easy to overturn, just break open the wombat's ass to see, people's butts and animals are no different.
It wasn't until 18 years that scientists solved this unsolved mystery. A team of Chinese scientists at Georgia Tech studied two wombats killed in a car accident and found that the driving force behind the shape of these cube feces is their intestines, which also won the 2019 Funny Nobel Prize.
Unlike the intestines of most animals, the various parts of the large intestine of the wombat are not exactly the same, the elasticity of its four horns is much smaller than the middle part, and when the food residue passes, the middle part undergoes a large deformation, so that the intestine shows a four-sided feature.
When studying this problem, because the wombat was dead and could not intuitively see the pattern of wombat feces in the intestine, the researchers came up with a method that emptied the wombat's intestines and stuffed them into a balloon, and then filled the balloon with air. As they had expected, the balloon turned square.
But in order to make a three-dimensional square poop, there must also be one of the most important processes - dehydration. If the dehydration is not complete, this shape will not be concave. This also has a lot to do with their habitat, the drier their habitat, the more distinct the edges and corners of feces. If there is a good water source, such as a zoo, their feces will not be able to rise.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > why make the poop square? </h1>
Making poop into squares is certainly not for fun, and certainly not for the title of "the only one in the world".
For wombats, the use of square poop is also very simple, that is, it is used to occupy the plate and mark the boundaries. It is said that spherical feces can also be used to mark territory, which is also a method used by many animals. But the biggest advantage of the square poop is that it is not easy to roll, can faithfully stand on their own shift, even if it is placed on the slope, the poop will not slip, even if it encounters the shell lang, this expert also has to sigh: both shell lang, He sheng wombat.
Adhering to the purpose of making the most of things, Australians have watched the wombat not play a good role in the square poop, and have developed many "new features" for it. Fuel, fertilizer these normal uses are not to mention, the big destruction is that they are used to make paper, used to make children's building blocks toys, and even make air fresheners. This is really a tasteful "invention".
Of course, as vegetarians, the plant fibers that wombats eat are highly dehydrated, so the feces produced are not smelly, and it is said that there is even a unique Australian fragrance.
At present, the survival situation of wombats is not very optimistic, the three species of wombats that survive in Australia: Queensland furstreaked wombats, South Australian fursned wombats and Tasmanian wombats, Queensland fursniff wombats are critically endangered, ranking sixth in the world's top ten endangered animals list, the entire population is only about 100.
Will the tragedy of the thylacine in 1936 be repeated on the wombat? Australia's rainforests will give the answer.