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lemming

The always excellent Oatmeal:

We need to have a conversation about wombats

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/wombats

Possibly NSFW, depending on your W.

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> The Northern Hairy-nosed wombat is considered one of the rarest mammals in the world -- there are only 80 of them left. If you can, please donate or follow any of these organizations. I personally donated $10,000 to help kick things off.

Thank you :) All wombats are in some trouble right now (even the bare-nosed or "common" wombat), but the Northern Hairy-nosed is right on the edge of extinction.

Wombats never get much attention, so it's awesome to see this article and the response it's got.

A problem with metric-imperial conversion in the article? Based on having seen them in the bush, wombat poo is a 4 centimetre cube not a 4 inch cube. That would be a Diprotodon sized wombat. Lucky we're only talking about wombat poo, and not something important like a space craft...

I think the 4 inches is in relation to the size of a human poo and not about the size of wombat poo.

Or a very very uncomfortable normal-sized wombat.

I now have a new perspective of what nature is capable of creating

Well, Mr. Oatmeal is apparently repeating an urban legend. I look at a wombat, and no way do I believe that thing can move at 25 mph (40 kph). I found a piece[0] which indicates this might have been some confusion as to metric vs imperial decades ago that was then retransmited through the ages.

[0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-04-13/how-fast-can-...

And yet the very article that you refer to confirms that anecdotal reports by the biologists studying these very animals report that during breeding seasons that the male Southern Hairy-Nose Wombat can reach these speeds in bursts:

>South Australian wildlife biologist [A/Prof] David Taggart has studied the southern hairy-nosed wombat since 1993. In the 2008 and 2024 editions of Strahan's mammal book, he writes that the southern hairy-nosed species can run at 40 kph. "I can confirm that I have clocked this species running at just over 40 kph, although they can't maintain that for long."

More non-peer reviewed information here from the Australian national science agency: https://connectsci.au/news/news-parent/3758/Turns-out-wombat...

We have four on the boundaries of our property. My 'Goldidor' (Labrador/retriever cross) has given chase a few times and has struggled to keep up. When they run they RUN. Maybe not pushing 40kph, not not far from it...

I got our dog up to 35-40kmh when he chased me on a bike one day, and he maintained it for quite a while.

If it’s outrunning a dog, it’s moving quick.

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