Wombats Look Like Real Life Ewoks

[Music] throughout Australia's fields and temperate forests lives a fuzzy chunky little lawnmower these stout cuties spend their days mowing grass with their continually growing teeth and their nights snoozing in their burrows [Music] I just got knocked over by a baby wombat these are the heroes of the bush fires the Steelers of hearts and the Knights of the most adorable joust in the world no bomb bat [Music] hi I'm Daniel Defoe and you're watching Animalia logic today I'm looking for wombats [Music] we just buried across from Triana all the way to Mariah Islands now this has been reserved as a national park to be untouched by canoes now it's somewhat of a haven for all kinds of Tasmanian wildlife this island was at first colonized as a penitentiary but has since been shut down and for the past 150 years have been preserved as a national park behind me is absolutely covered in animal feces of all kinds there are chances of finding wildlife out here aren't going to be excellent [Music] well we're definitely in one backcountry there's a little mound behind me full of burrows and you might assume that these burrows could be any small mammals but once again the poop gives it away where there are poop cubes there are Wong bats I knew I had a good feeling about this right over there is the first one that we've spotted wombats are a family of marsupials closely related to koalas only found in Australia there are three living species of wombat the common wombat is the most prolific and are found in southeastern Australia as well as here in Tasmania the other two species are their ugly cousins the northern and southern hairy-nosed wombat which are primarily found in Queensland and southern Australia respectively the hairy-nosed wombat looks like someone had to draw a wombat from memory but got confused halfway through and drew a possum instead wombats are famous for their chill at attunes spending three to eight hours a day eating but despite their reputation in wombat country things can get pretty spicy for male wombats territory is everything and this male is looking to expand his the challenging male approaches the two competitors square off preparing for an all-out brawl the Challenger backs off but not for long the two males slam into each other like nights in the joust or more aptly like two stuffed animals being smashed together they grapple each looking for advantage they snap and claw at one another using their heavy bodies to try and knock the other to the ground this is mortal wombat [Music] in the end sizes King and the dominant male stays that way in a final message of their distaste for one another they both scrape the ground with their front legs in the wombat world this is akin to a death threat it may be an insult but it really looks like they're winding up wombat combat is serious business while it may be hard to tell from seeing pictures of wombats these cuties can be quite large they can reach up to 1 metre in length and weigh up to 30 kilograms even as juveniles they're quite large as I soon learned I feel like a quarterback with the biggest football of all time it's quite a heavy sturdy animal they're actually very muscular despite how round they might look and they put that muscle to good use while they may look pudgy they can run pretty fast as fast as Usain Bolt for up to a minute wombats are herbivorous and they Hoover up everything in front of them from shrubs to roots to hopefully not monopods well whew the food that they eat is a lot of grasses and and plants so it is very low-calorie food they're not likely to put on much fat but they are likely to build lots and lots of muscle this one likes my boot oh my god you're personalizing them for me thank you hmm since their diet is made up of vast quantities of hard plant matter their teeth are constantly being worn down and so while BOTS have developed rodent-like teeth that never stop growing you can see these youngsters are having a good chew on this log and that's because wombats have continuously growing teeth but they need to keep wearing down in order to stay healthy this is a great example of convergent evolution as wombats are in no way related to beavers but they both share the same evolutionary strategy well it's hard to imagine these wombats ever taking a break from munching away they can survive several days without eating they have a very slow metabolism and it can take them up to two weeks to digest a meal this can be a helpful tool when they're trapped in their burrows either by a predator or by a bushfire wombats are nocturnal and they don't have great vision so instead they rely on their big leathery noses to find exactly what they're looking for low-lying plant matter wombats are excellent diggers and come equipped with powerful claws built for digging wombats are natural excavators they've got very powerful claws that they use for burrowing in fact they're the largest burrowing marsupial in the world wombats have powerful front legs and strong claws that help them dig through just about anything well you might think that when they dig some dirt would end up in their pouches they have evolved to have backwards opening pouches which prevents any dirt from grinding up their Joey's all that digging has led to some pretty impressive burrows all the holes to the burrows here right behind me are probably all connected underground they're so poorly maintained by the wombats themselves they end up sharing that space with a lot of other animals nature's architects the wombat wombats were the heroes of the bush fires in Australia this year because it was reported that they were sharing their burrows with so many species of animals but that's not quite the right word for it you could say that a lot of animals were squatting in their burrows during the fires that would be a little more accurate their burrows are massive and can be up to 20 metres long and can have over 15 entrances a lot of different entrances lead down to the same shared pathways so they have a little underground network where a lot of animals could cram in if necessary so intentional sharing or not good job little guys you helped everyone wombats usually live in the same burrow their entire lives unless they're forced to leave it several wombats can live in the same burrow provided its large enough these burrows make effective hideouts from predators but a burrow with an open door does not a safe house make and so wombats have developed their own version of blasters their butts you can see how flat this pelvis is and curved down that's because they have a cartilage plate that covers their entire pelvis it kind of acts as a shield because it's almost an inch thick of cartilage to escape predation they'll dig in and leave their butt hanging out their butt is so well protected that nothing can really get through that even if tassiedevil would have a hard time pulling it out by that big cartilage plate now wombats have a single coat of fur this helps them with their burrowing behavior because whatever dirt and sand gets stuck in there it comes easier to shake off and it doesn't get trapped under that fur quite so much it's thick and wiry but also quite soft also helps them with it also helps them with regulating their temperature both dissipating and holding on to heat when they need it their coloring also helps them camouflage in the dense foliage making it hard for predators to spot them probably the most famous thing about wombats is what they leave behind their poo their poo is unique in the animal kingdom because it's cubed that's right wombats have cubed this is an interesting communication strategy as it allows them to stack their poo to mark their territory without fear of their unique droppings rolling away whether you can use them to roll a critical is still to be determined eating as much as they do wombats can poop up to a hundred cubes a day yet despite this prolific contribution to science the mechanics behind its production is still a mystery to us scientists have discovered that their poo only solidifies in the last bit of their intestine their intestines contain parts that are stretchy and parts that are solid but how it all comes together to produce cubes is still unknown scientists and engineers are still looking at the problem because it's a novel way of making cubes which could potentially be applied in production chains around the world when wombats aren't eating fighting or pooping they'll be mating meeting can happen at any time throughout the year though its most common during the rainy season unlike many other species of marsupials which give birth to multiple Joey's that need to compete to survive wombats only give birth to one single Joey born about the size of one of their poop cubes it won't be for another six months until they're ready to leave the pouch once they start growing hair they go from very alien looking to incredibly cute by 15 months they'll be fully weaned and ready to fend for themselves though they will stick close to mum for another few months as it's dangerous to go alone these ones here are only about twelve months old now in in the wild baby wombats would stay with their mother for up to 20 months there would only be one Joey her mother for about every two years so a mother wombat would spend a lot of energy and time raising just one young scientists are still confirming this but it's common knowledge that baby wombats are scientifically the cutest things in the world because of how much time is expended raising just one Joey it's actually very difficult to recover their population if it were to decline while the common wombat is thriving across southeastern Australia and Tasmania its cousins aren't having nearly as much success the northern hairy-nosed wombat is critically endangered with only 80 mature adults left in the wild living in a single colony in Queensland the southern hairy nosed wombat is faring better than their northern brethren but are listed as near threatened fortunately due to conservation efforts and protection from invasive species the northern hairy-nosed wombat have been steadily increasing in numbers and they are now at their largest population size since European colonisation with any luck this trend will continue and all three species of wombat will begin to thrive for the world needs more chunky fuzzy lawnmowers with a serious attitude or at least I do [Music] seeing wombat combat up-close was one of the highlights of our trip I still can't believe those cute fluffy balls can be so grumpy there were also some other great moments such as my first ever helicopter ride over the beautiful great ocean road in Victoria if you want to see this and more of our latest trip to Australia then you should head on over to our patreon page for some exclusive behind-the-scenes content in this week's episode you'll see breathtaking views of one of Australia's natural wonders the 12 apostles filming these amazing structures from above was an incredible experience that I'd love to share with you times are tough for everybody right now and so all of these behind-the-scenes episodes will be early access to patrons and then they'll be available to everyone to watch thanks for your support we really appreciate it and we hope that you enjoy watching so what should we talk about next please let me know in the comments I'm sure to subscribe for new episodes of Animal Logic every week thanks for watching you want go play Oakley okay there you go you can burrow under my arm that's fine you can jump off whenever you feel like it that's on you there you go I love these furry football friends

Channel: Animalogic

Views: 1,965,208

Keywords: animals, animal, logic, education, show, animalogic, crazy, ugly, weird, gross, beautiful, interesting, facts, animalsfacts, about, information, info, school, research, learn, learning, fun, smart, wombat, wombats, bushfire, bushfires, digging, burrows, sharing, Australia, australian, joust, wombat combat, mortal wombat, mortal combat, heroes, hero, teeth, baby, babies, fuzzy, grass, beaver, cuddly, baby wombat, marsupial, stout, chunky, chonk, wombat country, koala, poop cube, cubes, poop, squre poop, hairy nosed wombat, endangered

Id: oyFRot1i0CQ

Length: 15min 20sec (920 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 17 2020