Scientists understand why wombats defecate in neatly identical cubes 18:31

Scientists have explained why the feces coming out of the intestines of wombats have a shape close to a cube. In this respect informs ABC channel.

Scott Carver and his colleagues have been studying wombat excrement for years. The first known work was published in 2018, and scientists were awarded the Ig Nobel Prize, an ironic award for funny and (at first glance) not-so-important discoveries. In 2021, the research team expanded on the subject and found that the unusual shape of wombat feces owed to the uneven distribution of intestinal tissue thickness. In recent studies, biologists have determined why stool is so uniform.

»[В предыдущих работах] We understood how the corners that give the stool its square shape are formed in the cross section. “But we haven’t determined why they break apart at such regular intervals and are consistently small and of approximately equal length,” says scientists.

To clarify this issue, the authors turned to information gained by volcanologists during the study of lava solidification. Periodic structures such as the Irish “Way of the Giants”, made up of rows of hexagons, can appear when the lava solidifies unevenly. Presumably, the analogue of solidification of lava is the drying of excrement.

The authors tested their hypothesis on a dry paste model. To do this, they used cornstarch, a plastic model of the wombat’s intestines, and infrared lamps. Second, it dried starch slurry placed in a plastic path of various capacities. As a result, the scientists found that the more intense the drying process, the smaller and harder the hardened slurry broke up.

To confirm their hypothesis, the authors turned to the reference literature. They found that cracks formed when the water content in feces dropped below 70 percent, and the animals ejected the feces in balls. While shed cow beetles occur at about 85-90% moisture content, wombat excrement is very dry and contains 65% water.