With their tiny magical butts.

April 14, 2015 6:52 AM

Did you know that wombats poop in cube shape? It's true. But why? And...how? Here's an explanation, complete with a wombat digestive tract model and jello poops.

As a reward for making it through this shitpost, have some bonus wombat material: fatty wombat wants to play and Jimmy Wales.

posted by phunniemee (30 comments total)

And this is how we came to refer to people who like to keep things neatly aligned and squared away as "anal".
posted by cortex at 7:06 AM on April 14, 2015 [13 favorites]

For any who find this weirdly arousing I just want to point that 'ricochet biscuit' in an anagram for 'erotic cubic shit.'
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:14 AM on April 14, 2015 [21 favorites]

Anyone else expect to hear this in Ze Frank's pseudo Morgan Freeman voice? This will have to do.
posted by furtive at 7:23 AM on April 14, 2015

> 'erotic cubic shit'

Bow, bow bow.
posted by davelog at 7:26 AM on April 14, 2015

tl;dr: Microborg
posted by Sys Rq at 7:30 AM on April 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

If you feed them a lot of raisins, wombat poops can be used as random-number generators 🎲
posted by oulipian at 7:31 AM on April 14, 2015 [23 favorites]

"six-sided excrement" seems very D&D to me.
posted by chavenet at 7:31 AM on April 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

Obviously it's because the wombat is built like a brick shit house.
posted by Kabanos at 7:46 AM on April 14, 2015 [5 favorites]

They're shooting craps!
posted by moonmilk at 8:11 AM on April 14, 2015 [5 favorites]

When I was ten I was given for Christmas the book annual of the BBC comedy program Not The Nine O'Clock News, 'Not 1982', that included a little spoof of a German travel phrase book. And I was extremely amused (I was ten) by one item that went something like "Mein beutelmaus hat verstopfung: My wombat is constipated." Now, all these years later I realize that this statement isn't quite as silly as it sounds.
posted by Flashman at 8:16 AM on April 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

Well, nothing I do or see all day is going to top this. I'm going back to bed.
posted by MexicanYenta at 8:22 AM on April 14, 2015 [10 favorites]

Now I want calling cards made of wombat poop.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:34 AM on April 14, 2015

It's intelligent design;
nature hates straight lines
posted by Renoroc at 8:50 AM on April 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

WHAT? NOW? It's six months until Wombat Day.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:29 AM on April 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

Thank God for rounded corners, because ouch.
posted by doctor_negative at 10:10 AM on April 14, 2015

If I wasn't BlueHorse, I would want to be HarryWombat.
posted by BlueHorse at 11:01 AM on April 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

Did you know that wombats poop in cube shape?

Nobody does! This is gonna be my meeting opener for the rest of the day.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 12:49 PM on April 14, 2015

Did you know that wombats poop in cube shape?

did you know that wombats are very grumpy?
posted by pyramid termite at 1:17 PM on April 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

Accidentally clicked the first link while scrolling the front page; I have a feeling that the network sysadmin will be wanting to discuss this at some point.
posted by The Zeroth Law at 1:40 PM on April 14, 2015

This is gonna be my meeting opener for the rest of the day.

I've shared this fun fact on probably 90% of my first dates as a kind of weird nerd shibboleth, and let me tell you, their reaction to that one little thing is highly predictive of how well we'll get along.
posted by phunniemee at 1:42 PM on April 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

Explains Yo-Yo Ma's famed research, then.
posted by scruss at 3:23 PM on April 14, 2015

They're shooting craps!

With a diet of mainly young grass and new plant growth, they're also crapping shoots...
posted by Pinback at 3:30 PM on April 14, 2015 [6 favorites]

This is just further proof that I desperately need a pet wombat.
posted by sarcasticah at 3:54 PM on April 14, 2015

So...cube-shaped poop isn't normal?
I may need to schedule an appointment.
posted by uosuaq at 3:56 PM on April 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

The video in the io9 article is very funny. The woman presents the material in a matter-of-fact way, but she clearly delights in mangling the jello replicas and showing off her low-budget model of a wombat digestive tract. The shot of her tearing apart a hot dog while enjoying a beer after the montage of wombat scat is almost grotesque, but it's also naively sincere. The whole thing feels like a Tim and Eric video.
posted by painquale at 5:18 PM on April 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

I've shared this fun fact on probably 90% of my first dates as a kind of weird nerd shibboleth, and let me tell you, their reaction to that one little thing is highly predictive of how well we'll get along.

I don't think that this would work in Australia. Everyone here knows about the square poo of wombats. There's even a famous (well, 'famous') poem about it.

The Wombat

As you splash along the track
Eyes alert and ears pinned back
You might have seen those queer square turds
And thought, if not expressed in words

The stress of such a defecation
Baffles ones' imagination
But it's not done to entertain us -
The Wombat has an oblong anus.

So if your slumber is disturbed
By cries and screams, don't be perturbed.
Eyes closed, teeth clenched and racked with pain
A Wombat's gone and crapped again!!

B. Tate, 1982. The Bastard from the Bush, Obscene Songs
and Ballads of Australian Origin. Q/Land: Rams Skull Press.

posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:29 PM on April 14, 2015 [5 favorites]

Why a Horse with a round Fundament emits a square Excrement?
posted by aws17576 at 11:54 PM on April 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

True story: When I clicked on that "Wombat Poo Squares" YouTube link, an ad for Toll House came up.
posted by duffell at 5:28 PM on April 15, 2015

It's intelligent design;
nature hates straight lines

Wombat poop would cause seizures in Peter Watts' vampires.
posted by duffell at 5:33 PM on April 15, 2015

Nonsense. They have square poop because they have a super powerful poop-lopper muscle in their sphincters. That popping sound you hear is their little anuses slamming shut.
posted by mule98J at 11:49 AM on April 16, 2015 [1 favorite]