Amazing Fact: Wombats Make Cubes Before the Exit
Wombat poop becomes cubic inside the intestine. The explanation involves alternating regions of stiffness, contractions, and actual fluid mechanics.
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Wombats are famous for producing cube-shaped feces. The cube is not made by a square anus.
Research on bare-nosed wombats found that the shape forms inside the intestine, particularly in the last part of the gut. The intestinal wall has regions that differ in thickness and stiffness. As material moves through repeated contractions, those differences help form flat sides and corners.
In other words: the animal is not using a square nozzle. The intestine itself is doing geometry.
The 2021 study combined dissections, tissue testing, experiments, and mathematical modeling to explain how soft biological material can produce surprisingly sharp shapes.
Sources: Soft Matter: Intestines of non-uniform stiffness mold the corners of wombat feces; Georgia Tech.
Mina Foss
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