Scientists led by Scott Carver explored whether cube-shaped feces help wombats communicate. Earlier work, which involved Carver and won a 2019 Ig Nobel Prize for physics, showed how a wombat’s lower intestine and body shape produce cube-like droppings. The current study asks what function those cubes serve.
Wombats are mostly solitary, but they repeatedly deposit feces at shared latrines and often place deposits near prominent landscape features. A student researcher, Kate McMahon at the University of Tasmania, found a vomeronasal organ in the skull, which supports a strong sense of smell similar to behaviors seen in cats and snakes.
The team used gas chromatography and mass spectrometry to analyse the droppings and detected individually distinct chemical mixtures. In behavioural tests, researchers moved scat from distant latrines into local ones and filmed the sites. Wombats spent more time investigating latrines that contained non-resident scats. The researchers suggest these chemical signals could convey identity, sex, age or reproductive status and provide a baseline for future olfactory studies.
Difficult words
- latrine — place where animals regularly leave their wastelatrines
- vomeronasal organ — small organ that detects chemicals for smell
- gas chromatography — lab method to separate chemical mixtures for analysis
- mass spectrometry — technique that measures molecular weights of chemicals
- scat — animal droppings used in scientific study
- olfactory — relating to the sense of smell
- distinct — clearly different from other similar things
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Discussion questions
- Why might cube-shaped feces be more useful than round droppings for communication?
- Can you think of other animals that use scent to communicate? Give an example and explain briefly.
- How could understanding wombat scent signals help researchers or conservationists?
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