When nature calls, wombats poops out a masterpiece – a stack of cube-shaped BMs, the only animal that knows it. And now scientists finally know how wombats achieve this feat, according to a new study published online in the appropriate journal on Thursday (January 28). Soft case.
The international team of researchers found that the wombat, a small marsupial that tunnels beneath Down, has block-like poop.
Previously, some researchers erroneously suggested that the shape of the anal sphincter of the uterus leads to the characteristic dung of the animal, just as how Play-Doh can appear in different forms when pressed by different extruders. Even unpublished research presented by the same team at the 2018 American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics Conference not completely fixed the exact regions of the intestine responsible for the boxy feces, although it is a Ig Nobel Prize in 2019.
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But now, after studying intestinal tissue in wombat, a CT scan (computed tomography) of a live bare-nosed wombat (Vombatus ursinus) and utilizing the mathematical models, the team learned that the shit’s geometric geometry probably originated in the last 17% of the intestinal tract of the uterus. The intestines of the uterus are long, about 10 meters, or about ten times the length of its body. But four sites – two that are stiffer and two that are more flexible than the rest of the gut due to changes in muscle thickness – are key to the formation of cubic exudates, the researchers found.
It is likely that these areas with different muscle thicknesses help shape the sharp corners of the cubes as the gut undergoes rhythmic contractions, the researchers said. “The angles arise due to faster contraction in the tight regions and relatively slower movement in the middle of the soft regions,” the researchers wrote in the study.
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Moisture, or lack thereof, also plays a role. Unlike people whose digestive process takes one to two days, a uterus takes as much as four times longer so that the marsupial can extract the greatest nutrition. The intestines of the uterus are also excellent for extracting water, which explains why their shit is one-third drier than humans. This drying process, which takes place largely in the last part of the colon, known as the distal colon, probably helps the uterus to keep its shit in a dice-like shape.
The idea for the study began when fellow researcher Scott Carver, a naturalist at the University of Tasmania, dissected a wombat carcass during a research project on the treatment of scabies, a skin disease caused by parasitic mites. It was known that ‘they place this feces in prominent places in their home range, such as around a rock or a log, to communicate with each other,’ Carver said in a statement. But it was not clear how they made this cubic miss.
This mystery, which has now been solved, can help scientists determine the health of wombat. ‘Sometimes [captive wombat] feces are not as cubic as the [wild] one, “studied co-researcher David Hu, a researcher in biomechanics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, told the journal Science. In other words, wombats with square poop can have healthier intestines.
In addition, “These results may be applicable in manufacturing, clinical pathology, and digestive health,” the researchers wrote in the study.
Originally published on Live Science.