If you're interested in original animals, read about a rodent like the wombat. This fluffy animal evokes sympathy and respect. The content of the article:
- Description of the rodent wombat
- Home content
- Lifestyle and reproduction
The wombat is a very cute and cute creature of nature. His homeland is Australia. Like many animals of this country, the wombat is also a marsupial animal, but the place intended for raising a cub is not in front, but behind. Therefore, the bag resembles, rather, a backpack. This arrangement is not accidental. After all, the wombat is a burrowing animal that builds long passages underground, helping itself to dig the ground with its clawed paws. If the bag was on the stomach, soil and dirt would get there.
Description of the rodent wombat
Outwardly, the wombat resembles a fluffy bear cub, but its muzzle is slightly flattened. The weight of the animal is 20-45 kilograms, and its height ranges from 70 cm to 120. The animal's body is compact.
The short, stocky strong limbs help the wombat dig tunnels at a depth of 3 meters, the length of which is 20 meters on average. Large claws also help. There are five fingers on each paw of the animal. Wombats have a gray-brown coat and thick skin.
Two small eyes flaunt on a pretty face, the tail is short, the teeth betray its resemblance to rodents. If we compare the teeth of a wombat and Australian marsupials, then wombats have less of them, only 12.
There are three modern types of wombats: Short-haired, Kvislensky, Long-haired wombats. Once upon a time there were 5 more species of these animals, but they became extinct. Wombats have a long history, since they began to inhabit the earth 18 million years ago. More than 36 million years ago, the ancestors of wombats and koalas had one evolutionary line, but then each went its own way. Since then, these are various types of animals that are closest relatives.
About 40 thousand years ago, an even closer relative of wombats, which was called diprotodon, died out. These animals were even larger in size, the largest representatives were about two meters at the withers and 3 meters in length.
Of course, hardly anyone would want to keep such large animals at home, and wombats are happy to tame. This is not difficult to do, since animals easily make contact and become quite good-natured. It is pleasant to hold wombats in your hands, if you blow on their nose - the animals can fall asleep.
They can be taught to open doors, which wombats will gladly do. The animal has good hearing and scent, but sees poorly. There were cases when these animals sat patiently near their master's clothes, thinking that he was there. In fact, the owner of the house was not there.
Keeping a wombat at home
Despite the fact that the animal gets used to it well in captivity and can even live here instead of the prescribed fifteen to 20-25 years, the animal is considered stupid. Therefore, it can pose a danger to the surrounding pets and people. If the animal gets scared or feels threatened, it may even bite, defending itself.
Interestingly, in the wild, he has almost no enemies, the only exception is the wild dog dingo and the Tasmanian devil. But the wombat is not so easy to defeat, because on the back of his body he has a strong shield.
If the enemy wants to climb into the hole to the wombat, he closes it with his hind limbs, preventing an intruder from entering. If he nevertheless succeeded in this, the wombat begins to press him against the wall, presses him against it with his shield and strangles him. If this cannot be done, the animal desperately butts like a ram.
He can scare the aggressor by making sounds like mooing or grinning. Usually such a measure helps, and the uninvited guest leaves. If the enemy turns out to be stronger, the wombat runs away, developing a speed of up to 40 km / h. But the animal will not be able to run so fast for a long time.
This rodent is not picky about food. He feasts on young shoots of grass, mushrooms, berries, mosses, plant roots. They digest food within 14 days, so it is consumed very sparingly. The same goes for water. For 1 kg of animal weight, only 20 milliliters of water is enough.
These features help the wombat to survive in years of crop failure and drought, to be an economical animal when keeping at home, in a zoo. Perhaps the only thing that poses a danger to them in captivity is the cold, the animal does not tolerate low temperatures well.
Wombat lifestyle and breeding
Wombats are solitary animals, they do not live in packs. However, burrows are located close to each other. Sometimes the wombats' passages intersect, but the animals mark their territory with their square-shaped feces so that the neighbor does not encroach on it.
Wombats have a nocturnal lifestyle, during the day they sleep or rest in their burrows, with sunset they go out to feed and walk. But in winter they lack warmth, so they sometimes go out during this time of the year during the daytime to bask in the sun.
Wombats, unlike many other animals, breed all year round, with the only exceptions in arid regions, where it is seasonal. The female has 2 nipples, but only 1 cub is born at the same time. His female bears about 21 days, then the baby is in the mother's pouch for 6-8 months, but even after getting out of it, it remains close to the mother for another year.
Sexual maturity in these rodents occurs at two years of age in males and at 3 years in females. As mentioned above, in captivity, wombats sometimes live up to 25 years, but a case was recorded when a wombat lived in a zoo until 34 years old.
How to keep a wombat at home - watch the video:
Interestingly, the wombat was the pet of the famous writer, author of "Alice in Wonderland" - Lewis Carroll. The animal has lived with him since 1869. Nowadays, the export of this animal from Australia is prohibited, it is sold only to large zoos for $ 500-1000.
