ABOVE: PHOTO BY P. YANG AND D. HU/GEORGIA TECH
Examinations of wombats’ digestive tracts reveal that the elastic properties of the ends of their large intestines are capable of turning liquid excrement into cubical scat, according to a study presented this month at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics in Atlanta, Georgia.
“We currently have only two methods to manufacture cubes: We mold it, or we cut it. Now we have this third method,” coauthor Patricia Yang, a postdoc at the Georgia Institute of Technology, says in a press release. “It would be a cool method to apply to the manufacturing process—how to make a cube with soft tissue instead of just molding it.”
As for why wombats poop cubes, researchers suspect the shape allows the animals to pile their feces next to their burrows and in other places to signal their territories.
