How do wombats make cubed poo?(meetings.aps.org)
meetings.aps.org
How do wombats make cubed poo?
http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DFD18/Session/E19.1
28 comments
Many wombats died to bring us this information.
(These wombats died in car accidents, and their bodies used to learn more about wombats: https://phys.org/news/2018-11-scientists-wombats-cubed-poop....)
(These wombats died in car accidents, and their bodies used to learn more about wombats: https://phys.org/news/2018-11-scientists-wombats-cubed-poop....)
A more digestible explanation: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/11/wombat-po...
Does cubic poo help the wombat in any way?
Does it use poo cubes to build things?
Edit:. A quick internet search suggests they poop in high up places to mark territory, and presumably the more typical round poop would fall off high up rocks and be a bad marker.
Does it use poo cubes to build things?
Edit:. A quick internet search suggests they poop in high up places to mark territory, and presumably the more typical round poop would fall off high up rocks and be a bad marker.
Maybe the cube shape is better for the intestines to effectively absorb water from the dry mass. Although this would require an explanation why a cube and not a very flat tube.
Wouldn’t that be an extension of their territory rather?
> they poop in high up places
I've a wombat living on my property. The elevation we're talking about is only 20mm or so, in my experience. Most often it seems to be perched on an exposed tree root. I've heard it explained to me that they 'back up' to where they do it, so it's not as though they clamber up onto something.
That said, once I had a squared sawn log resting on an angle and it had wombat poo on it after a few nights and was about 300mm or so off the ground. The log would've been just manageable for a ground-hugging wombat to reverse up.
I've a wombat living on my property. The elevation we're talking about is only 20mm or so, in my experience. Most often it seems to be perched on an exposed tree root. I've heard it explained to me that they 'back up' to where they do it, so it's not as though they clamber up onto something.
That said, once I had a squared sawn log resting on an angle and it had wombat poo on it after a few nights and was about 300mm or so off the ground. The log would've been just manageable for a ground-hugging wombat to reverse up.
Yes, as cmroanirgo notes, they're renowned for this, and sometimes it can be quite amazing to 'spot the poo' after you've left some object out for only a day or two. I see them regularly on 50mm wide poly (irrigation) pipe - the accuracy of placement is astounding.
Wombats are territorial, and very regular in their nightly movements. The cubic poo may be in part a simple consequence of their body shape (squat, narrow, long - evolved to wiggle into tight holes leaving only their impenetrable back plate exposed to would-be predators through the day), or, as you observe, assisting in perching scat with less risk of it being moved.
As I understand it, the extra height allows for other animals to more easily detect (by smell, I'm guessing, but may be visual as well) their presence in the area - presumably with the intent that those other animals keep away.
Wombats are territorial, and very regular in their nightly movements. The cubic poo may be in part a simple consequence of their body shape (squat, narrow, long - evolved to wiggle into tight holes leaving only their impenetrable back plate exposed to would-be predators through the day), or, as you observe, assisting in perching scat with less risk of it being moved.
As I understand it, the extra height allows for other animals to more easily detect (by smell, I'm guessing, but may be visual as well) their presence in the area - presumably with the intent that those other animals keep away.
"and very regular in their nightly movements"
I see what you did there.
I see what you did there.
David Hu (last author) is famous in the fluid dynamics community.
See also https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/confessions-...
See also https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/confessions-...
Prof. Hu has a delightful pop-science book about animal-inspired engineering called "How to walk on water and climb up walls."
I look forward to the authors receiveing their IgNobel prize!
> NOTE: This the SECOND Ig Nobel Prize awarded to Patricia Yang and David Hu. They and two other colleagues shared the 2015 Ig Nobel Physics Prize, for testing the biological principle that nearly all mammals empty their bladders in about 21 seconds (plus or minus 13 seconds)
https://www.improbable.com/ig-about/the-2019-winners/
https://www.improbable.com/ig-about/the-2019-winners/
That abstract is a work of art. "This study addresses the long-standing mystery of cubic scat formation"
That page has a wrong year, the 2019 ceremony happened in 2019 a few days ago, as seen on:
https://www.improbable.com/ig-about/2019-ceremony/
https://www.improbable.com/ig-about/2019-ceremony/
They received it on Thursday and wore Wombat costumes to match... right after someone else received one for the amount of saliva produced by small children per day
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Quote of the day:
"By emptying the intestine and inflating it with a long balloon, we found that the local strain varies from 20 percent at the cube's corners to 75 percent at its edges"
Edit: Square sausages anyone? (I'm aware of Scottish square sausages)
"By emptying the intestine and inflating it with a long balloon, we found that the local strain varies from 20 percent at the cube's corners to 75 percent at its edges"
Edit: Square sausages anyone? (I'm aware of Scottish square sausages)
Somewhat off topic, but the podcast Wow in the World did an excellent episode on this. It is a podcast aimed at children that is all about science and is not annoying to listen to as an adult. Highly recommend.
I don’t this would really be the result, but it would be cool if this led to factories with more organic shapes and processes. The current state of the art factories would be amazing but somewhat recognizable to a Victorian time traveler (well, maybe not chip fabs, of maybe them too).
That's the kind of titles that makes me love HN so much
EDIT: Nevermind.
>This study addresses the long-standing mystery of cubic scat formation and provides insight into new manufacturing techniques for non-axisymmetric structures using soft tissues.
I hope they didn't kill a wombat just so they could inflate it's lower intestine like a balloon & write about the shape it made. Seems like an unethical waste, no?
>This study addresses the long-standing mystery of cubic scat formation and provides insight into new manufacturing techniques for non-axisymmetric structures using soft tissues.
I hope they didn't kill a wombat just so they could inflate it's lower intestine like a balloon & write about the shape it made. Seems like an unethical waste, no?
It's answered in the linked abstract:
"...derived from veterinary euthanized individuals following motor vehicle collisions in Tasmania, Australia"
"...derived from veterinary euthanized individuals following motor vehicle collisions in Tasmania, Australia"
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This seems to be an abstract for a talk rather than the actual full paper?
Correct. At least in physics, there's no paper. The abstract is what's submitted to the conference, and gets published before the conference begins. Peer review is limited to deciding whether your talk gets into the conference schedule or not, slotted into a different division of the conference, or perhaps to a poster session.
You could contact the author and see if they have a preprint or something to share.
The intent is to provide an outlet for "lesser" stature work, student projects, or preliminary results en route to writing a full paper. I was a physics student 25 years ago, and there was an informal culture of "everybody gets to publish." You were pretty much guaranteed a slot at one of the conferences, even if it was a poster session in a dark hallway alongside the guys who were proving that quantum mechanics was a hoax. That way, nobody could say, "they refused to publish me." And the field was never so crowded that there wasn't room for a few of those abstracts.
How it should be done in the contemporary era is of course an open question. ;-)
You could contact the author and see if they have a preprint or something to share.
The intent is to provide an outlet for "lesser" stature work, student projects, or preliminary results en route to writing a full paper. I was a physics student 25 years ago, and there was an informal culture of "everybody gets to publish." You were pretty much guaranteed a slot at one of the conferences, even if it was a poster session in a dark hallway alongside the guys who were proving that quantum mechanics was a hoax. That way, nobody could say, "they refused to publish me." And the field was never so crowded that there wasn't room for a few of those abstracts.
How it should be done in the contemporary era is of course an open question. ;-)
I'm glad to hear that future technology may use the same manufacturing techniques as the the cubed poo of the wombat.