Wombat research that s not to be sniffed at
28 January 2021
Soft Matter – could help develop new colon cancer diagnostics.
An international team of scientists have been able to replicate how a wombat produces square poo – and it could change the way geometric products are manufactured in future.
Research published today in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s journal Soft Matter, expands on the discovery that wombat poo forms its distinctive shape within the wombat’s intestines, not at the point of exit as previously thought.
They have now discovered that the slow passage of the faeces and differing stiffness within the last 17 per cent of the intestines produces the square shape – before exiting via its round anus.