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The cubic poops properly mark

Their boundaries on dirt and bark

Around each wombat neighborhood

They plot the place a wombat stood

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These critters love to live alone

So pungent cubes on log and stone

Work well to warn away stray pests

‘Cuz wombats do not welcome guests

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They sleep all day, these herbivores 

And seldom waddle out-of-doors

They’d rather snooze on burrow couches

Cuddling joeys in backward pouches

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So if you go to the outback 

You might not meet a Jill or Jack

But you are sure to find some poo

That does not roll like most poos do

—- Ruth Gilmore Ingulsrud

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Square poo? Yes, it’s true! Why and how? Well, wombats like to have their own space. They’re a bit territorial. So producing poops that do not roll away is an advantage. It helps them mark the boundaries of their living space. Other wombats can see and smell these boundary markers and thus avoid a cantankerous encounter. Fighting is never welcome for a wombat. Even if they do rhyme with combat.

So how in the world does the body of a wombat produce a cube-shaped dropping? Amazingly, they produce about a hundred of these six-sided doo-doos every day. They have a unique intestinal structure, different from other animals. Some sections are like very stiff rubber bands while other sections are softer and have more give to them. Wombats are herbivores; they mostly eat grasses along with some other plants. They live in fairly dry environments and need to squeeze all of the moisture and nutrients from the food that they eat. As the food moves through the intestines, the squeezing action forms the excrement, (poop), into a cube shape. The stiffer grooves in the intestines create flat sides and the softer areas help form the edges and corners of the cubes.

After a long trek through the innards of the wombat… out pops a cubic poop. The boxier the cube, the healthier the wombat. Joeys, or baby wombats, are carried in the mommy’s pouch. Unlike most marsupials (pouch-bearing mammals), the wombats’ pouches face backwards. So I suppose the joeys might observe the little blocks popping out behind as mamma-wombat waddles forward. They may look like little building blocks, but I don’t think the wombat toddlers spend any time stacking them up. They’re too busy learning to waddle and munch and poop properly like their busy mammas.

For more information about wombats and their cube-shaped poops, check out these resources:

https://www.science.org/content/article/how-do-wombats-poop-cubes-scientists-get-bottom-mystery

https://phys.org/news/2025-12-wombats-square-poop.html#google_vignette

https://scitechdaily.com/how-wombats-produce-cube-shaped-poo-through-a-round-hole