The world's oldest-known wombat is about to turn 35

April 16, 2024 3:35 PM

Lovingly known as Mr Wine, the world's oldest-known wombat about to turn 35. Found as an orphan in Tasmania in 1989, Wain the wombat — also known as Mr Wine — is shuffling toward his mid-30s at a zoo in Japan, exceeding the average age of his wild counterparts by an estimated 20 years.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (9 comments total)

I love him.
posted by edencosmic at 3:55 PM on April 16 [3 favorites]

That's 35 years of pooping cubes. That clever bugger.
posted by hippybear at 4:04 PM on April 16 [4 favorites]

35 years of generating Minecraft terrain tiles!
posted by mystyk at 4:29 PM on April 16 [2 favorites]

He still shuffles around and goes into his hollow log … and does a little bit of digging.

Goals for old age.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 4:49 PM on April 16 [4 favorites]

So here's what I wanna know.

Whose job is it to keep track of the age of wombats, and what does this job pay?
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 11:19 PM on April 16

Wombats, is it. Yesterday I had a small TIL about the other end of wombat life. We're writing a paper about fertility related genes in mammals, which started as a WFH bioinformatics project for a student in lockdown. A late draft of the ms had a line "only 15 days in the opossum Monodelphis domestica" about the length of marsupial pregnancy. Since the iconic 1965 movie The Birth of the Red Kangaroo everybode kno that marsupial reproductive strategy has a short interior journey topped up with a long time in a pouch. But it turns out that wombat Vombatus ursinus gestation is 27 days and koala Phascolarctos cinereus is 34d; longer than numerous placental mammals incl Hamster Mesocricetus auratus [16d] and mouse Mus musculus [19d]. As with so much is science black&white becomes grey.
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:58 PM on April 16 [3 favorites]

ikeda isn't that far from where i am, but i've only been there once (for the instant ramen museum). i do remember seeing a lot of wombat-themed signage and items around town, which made me happy because i love wombats.

i'll have to make time to visit the zoo soon, but in the meantime, they have a wombat livestream on youtube.
posted by emmling at 6:40 AM on April 17 [2 favorites]

apologies, somehow i got the wrong link and this is the wombat livestream
posted by emmling at 5:04 PM on April 17 [2 favorites]

I love him very much.
posted by maryellenreads at 3:36 PM on April 18