Short-beaked echidna
The short-beaked echidna is one of four living species of echidna and the only member of the genus Tachyglossus. It is covered in fur and spines and has a distinctive snout and a specialized tongue, which it uses to catch its insect prey at a great speed. Like the other extant monotremes, the short-beaked echidna lays eggs; the short-beaked echidna has strong front limbs and claws, which allow it to burrow with great power. As it needs to be able to survive underground, it has a significant tolerance to high levels of carbon dioxide and low levels of oxygen, it has no weapons or fighting ability but repels predators by curling into a ball and deterring them with its spines. It lacks the ability to sweat and cannot deal with heat well, so it tends to avoid daytime activity in hot weather, it can swim. The snout has mechanoreceptors and electroreceptors that help the echidna to detect its surroundings. During the Australian winter, it goes into deep torpor and hibernation, reducing its metabolism to save energy.
As the temperature increases, it emerges to mate. Female echidnas lay one egg a year and the mating period is the only time the otherwise solitary animals meet one another. A young echidna is the size of a grape but grows on its mother's milk, rich in nutrients. Baby echidnas grow too large and spiky to stay in the pouch and, around seven weeks after hatching, are expelled from the pouch into the mother's burrow. At around six months of age, they have no more contact with their mothers; the species is found throughout Australia, where it is the most widespread native mammal, in coastal and highland regions of eastern New Guinea, where it is known as the mungwe in the Daribi and Chimbu languages. It is not threatened with extinction, but human activities, such as hunting, habitat destruction, the introduction of foreign predatory species and parasites, have reduced its distribution in Australia; the short-beaked echidna was first described by George Shaw in 1792. He named the species Myrmecophaga aculeata.
Since Shaw first described the species, its name has undergone four revisions: from M. aculeata to Ornithorhynchus hystrix, Echidna hystrix, Echidna aculeata and Tachyglossus aculeatus. The name Tachyglossus means "quick tongue", in reference to the speed with which the echidna uses its tongue to catch ants and termites, aculeatus means "spiny" or "equipped with spines"; the short-beaked echidna is the only member of its genus, sharing the family Tachyglossidae with the extant species of the genus Zaglossus that occur in New Guinea. Zaglossus species, which include the western long-beaked, Sir David's long-beaked and eastern long-beaked echidnas, are all larger than T. aculeatus, their diets consist of worms and grubs rather than ants and termites. Species of the Tachyglossidae are egg-laying mammals; the five subspecies of the short-beaked echidna are each found in different geographical locations. The subspecies differ from one another in their hairiness, spine length and width, the size of the grooming claws on their hind feet.
T. a. acanthion is found in Western Australia. T. a. aculeatus is found in New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria. T. a. lawesii is found in coastal regions and the highlands of New Guinea, in the rainforests of Northeast Queensland. T. a. multiaculeatus is found on Kangaroo Island. T. a. setosus is found on some islands in Bass Strait. The earliest fossils of the short-beaked echidna date back around 15 million years ago to the Pleistocene era, the oldest specimens were found in caves in South Australia with fossils of the long-beaked echidna from the same period; the ancient short-beaked echidnas are considered to be identical to their contemporary descendants except the ancestors are around 10% smaller. This "post-Pleistocene dwarfing" affects many Australian mammals. Part of the last radiation of monotreme mammals, echidnas are believed to have evolutionally diverged from the platypus around 66 million years ago, between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. However, the echidna's pre-Pleistocene heritage has not been traced yet, the lack of teeth on the fossils found thus far have made it impossible to use dental evidence.
The short-beaked echidna was called the spiny anteater in older books, though this term has fallen out of fashion since the echidna bears no relation to the true anteaters. It has a variety of names in the indigenous languages of the regions; the Noongar people from southwestern Western Australia call it the nyingarn. In Central Australia southwest of Alice Springs, the Pitjantjatjara term is tjilkamata or tjirili, from the word tjiri for spike of porcupine grass; the word can mean slowpoke. In central Cape York Peninsula, it is called kekoywa in Pakanh, where minha is a qualifier meaning'meat' or'animal', ekorak in Uw Oykangand and egorag in Uw Olkola, where inh- is a qualifier meaning'meat' or'animal'. In the highland regions of southwestern New Guinea, it is known as the mungwe in the Daribi and Chimbu languages. Short-beaked echidnas are 30 to 45 cm in length, with 75 mm of snout, weigh between 2 and 7 kg. However, the Tasmanian subspecies, T. a. setosus, is smaller than its Australian mainland counterparts.
Because the neck is not externally visible, the head and body appear t
Intertidal zone
The intertidal zone known as the foreshore and seashore and sometimes referred to as the littoral zone, is the area, above water at low tide and underwater at high tide. This area can include many different types of habitats, with many types of animals, such as starfish, sea urchins, numerous species of coral; the well-known area includes steep rocky cliffs, sandy beaches, or wetlands. The area can be a narrow strip, as in Pacific islands that have only a narrow tidal range, or can include many meters of shoreline where shallow beach slopes interact with high tidal excursion. Peritidal zone is similar but a somewhat wider zone, extending from above the highest tide level to below that of the lowest tide level. Organisms in the intertidal zone are adapted to an environment of harsh extremes; the intertidal zone is home to many several species from different taxa including Porifera, Coelenterates, crustaceans, etc. Water is available with the tides but varies from fresh with rain to saline and dry salt with drying between tidal inundations.
Wave splash can dislodge residents from the littoral zone. With the intertidal zone's high exposure to the sun, the temperature range can be anything from hot with full sun to near freezing in colder climates; some microclimates in the littoral zone are ameliorated by local features and larger plants such as mangroves. Adaptation in the littoral zone allows the use of nutrients supplied in high volume on a regular basis from the sea, moved to the zone by tides. Edges of habitats, in this case land and sea, are themselves significant ecologies, the littoral zone is a prime example. A typical rocky shore can be divided into a spray zone or splash zone, above the spring high-tide line and is covered by water only during storms, an intertidal zone, which lies between the high and low tidal extremes. Along most shores, the intertidal zone can be separated into the following subzones: high tide zone, middle tide zone, low tide zone; the intertidal zone is one of a number of marine biomes or habitats, including estuaries, neritic and deep zones.
Marine biologists divide the intertidal region into three zones, based on the overall average exposure of the zone. The low intertidal zone, which borders on the shallow subtidal zone, is only exposed to air at the lowest of low tides and is marine in character; the mid intertidal zone is exposed and submerged by average tides. The high intertidal zone is only covered by the highest of the high tides, spends much of its time as terrestrial habitat; the high intertidal zone borders on the splash zone. On shores exposed to heavy wave action, the intertidal zone will be influenced by waves, as the spray from breaking waves will extend the intertidal zone. Depending on the substratum and topography of the shore, additional features may be noticed. On rocky shores, tide pools form in depressions. Under certain conditions, such as those at Morecambe Bay, quicksand may form; this subregion is submerged - it is only exposed at the point of low tide and for a longer period of time during low tides. This area is teeming with life.
There is a great biodiversity. Organisms in this zone are not well adapted to periods of dryness and temperature extremes; some of the organisms in this area are abalone, sea anemones, brown seaweed, crabs, green algae, isopods, mussels, sculpin, sea cucumber, sea lettuce, sea palms, sea urchins, snails, surf grass, tube worms, whelks. Creatures in this area can grow to larger sizes because there is more available energy in the localized ecosystem. Marine vegetation can grow to much greater sizes than in the other three intertidal subregions due to the better water coverage; the water is shallow enough to allow plenty of light to reach the vegetation to allow substantial photosynthetic activity, the salinity is at normal levels. This area is protected from large predators such as fish because of the wave action and the shallow water; the intertidal region is an important model system for the study of ecology on wave-swept rocky shores. The region contains a high diversity of species, the zonation created by the tides causes species ranges to be compressed into narrow bands.
This makes it simple to study species across their entire cross-shore range, something that can be difficult in, for instance, terrestrial habitats that can stretch thousands of kilometres. Communities on wave-swept shores have high turnover due to disturbance, so it is possible to watch ecological succession over years rather than decades; the burrowing invertebrates that make up large portions of sandy beach ecosystems are known to travel great distances in cross-shore directions as beaches change on the order of days, semilunar cycles, seasons, or years. The distribution of some species has been found to correlate with geomorphic datums such as the high tide strand and the water table outcrop. Since the foreshore is alternately covered by the sea and exposed to the air, organisms living in this environment must have adaptions for both wet and dry conditions. Hazards include being smashed or carried away by rough waves, exposure to dangerously high temperatures, desiccation. Typical inhabit
Platypus
The platypus, sometimes referred to as the duck-billed platypus, is a semiaquatic egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia, including Tasmania. Together with the four species of echidna, it is one of the five extant species of monotremes, the only mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young; the animal is the sole living representative of its family and genus, though a number of related species appear in the fossil record. The first scientists to examine a preserved platypus body judged it a fake, made of several animals sewn together; the unusual appearance of this egg-laying, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal baffled European naturalists when they first encountered it, with some considering it an elaborate hoax. It is one of the few species of venomous mammals: the male platypus has a spur on the hind foot that delivers a venom capable of causing severe pain to humans; the unique features of the platypus make it an important subject in the study of evolutionary biology and a recognizable and iconic symbol of Australia.
The platypus is the animal emblem of the state of New South Wales. Until the early 20th century humans hunted the platypus for its fur, but it is now protected throughout its range. Although captive-breeding programs have had only limited success, the platypus is vulnerable to the effects of pollution, it is not under any immediate threat; when the platypus was first encountered by Europeans in 1798, a pelt and sketch were sent back to Great Britain by Captain John Hunter, the second Governor of New South Wales. British scientists' initial hunch was. George Shaw, who produced the first description of the animal in the Naturalist's Miscellany in 1799, stated it was impossible not to entertain doubts as to its genuine nature, Robert Knox believed it might have been produced by some Asian taxidermist, it was thought. Shaw took a pair of scissors to the dried skin to check for stitches; the common name "platypus" is the latinisation of the Greek word πλατύπους, "flat-footed", from πλατύς, "broad, flat" and πούς, "foot".
Shaw assigned the species the Linnaean name Platypus anatinus when he described it, but the genus term was discovered to be in use as the name of the wood-boring ambrosia beetle genus Platypus. It was independently described as Ornithorhynchus paradoxus by Johann Blumenbach in 1800 and following the rules of priority of nomenclature, it was officially recognised as Ornithorhynchus anatinus; the scientific name Ornithorhynchus anatinus is derived from ορνιθόρυγχος, which means "bird snout" in Greek. There is no universally-agreed plural form of "platypus" in the English language. Scientists use "platypuses" or "platypus". Colloquially, the term "platypi" is used for the plural, although this is technically incorrect and a form of pseudo-Latin. Early British settlers called it by many names, such as "watermole", "duckbill", "duckmole"; the name platypus is prefixed with the adjective "duck-billed" to form duck-billed platypus. In David Collins's account of the new colony 1788–1801, he describes coming across as "an amphibious animal, of the mole species".
His account includes a drawing of the animal. The body and the broad, flat tail of the platypus are covered with dense, brown fur that traps a layer of insulating air to keep the animal warm; the fur is waterproof, the texture is akin to that of a mole. The platypus uses its tail for storage of fat reserves; the webbing on the feet is more significant on the front feet and is folded back when walking on land. The elongated snout and lower jaw are covered in soft skin; the nostrils are located on the dorsal surface of the snout, while the eyes and ears are located in a groove set just back from it. Platypuses have been heard to emit a low growl when disturbed and a range of other vocalisations have been reported in captive specimens. Weight varies from 0.7 to 2.4 kg, with males being larger than females. The platypus has an average body temperature of about 32 °C rather than the 37 °C typical of placental mammals. Research suggests this has been a gradual adaptation to harsh environmental conditions on the part of the small number of surviving monotreme species rather than a historical characteristic of monotremes.
Modern platypus young have three teeth in each of the maxillae and dentaries, which they lose before or just after leaving the breeding burrow. The first upper and third lower cheek teeth of platypus nestlings are small, each having one principal cusp, while the other teeth have two main cusps; the platypus jaw is constructed differently from that of other mammals, the jaw-opening muscle is different. As in all true mammals, the tiny bones that conduct sound in the middle ear are incorporated into the skull, rather th
Tasmanian pademelon
The Tasmanian pademelon known as the rufous-bellied pademelon or red-bellied pademelon, is the sole species of pademelon found in Tasmania, was found throughout south-eastern Australia. This pademelon has developed heavier and bushier fur than its northern relatives, who inhabit northern Australia and Papua New Guinea. Males reach around 12 kg in weight, 1–1.2 metres in length including the tail, are larger than the females, which average 3.9 kg. Pademelons are nocturnal, spending the daylight hours in thick vegetation. Rainforest, sclerophyll forest, scrubland are preferred, although wet gullies in dry open eucalyptus forest are used; such places, next to open areas where feeding can occur, are favoured. After dusk, the animals move onto open areas to feed, but stray more than 100 metres from the forest edge; the species is widespread throughout Tasmania. The Tasmanian pademelon is a nocturnal herbivore feeding on a wide variety of plants, from herbs, green shoots and grass, to some nectar-bearing flowers.
Once a part of the diet of the thylacine, the Tasmanian pademelon is still preyed upon by other predators of the island, including the Tasmanian devil and quolls. So, they are abundant to the point of being culled to reduce competition for grass with the farmed animals. Hunting of the Tasmanian pademelon is allowed, its pelt having some economic value and its meat being palatable. There is no specific breeding season, though 70% of pademelon births seem to occur around the beginning of winter. Gestation for the female is 30 days; the young are in the pouch for about 6 months thereafter, are weaned at around 8 months. Joeys are sexually mature at 14–15 months. Pademelons live between 6 years in the wild. Data related to Thylogale billardierii at Wikispecies Park and Wildlife Service Tasmania: Tasmanian Pademelon
Tasmania
Tasmania is an island state of Australia. It is located 240 km to the south of the Australian mainland, separated by Bass Strait; the state encompasses the main island of Tasmania, the 26th-largest island in the world, the surrounding 334 islands. The state has a population of around 526,700 as of March 2018. Just over forty percent of the population resides in the Greater Hobart precinct, which forms the metropolitan area of the state capital and largest city, Hobart. Tasmania's area is 68,401 km2, of which the main island covers 64,519 km2, it is promoted as a natural state, protected areas of Tasmania cover about 42% of its land area, which includes national parks and World Heritage Sites. Tasmania was the founding place of the first environmental political party in the world; the island is believed to have been occupied by indigenous peoples for 30,000 years before British colonisation. It is thought Aboriginal Tasmanians were separated from the mainland Aboriginal groups about 10,000 years ago when the sea rose to form Bass Strait.
The Aboriginal population is estimated to have been between 3,000 and 7,000 at the time of colonisation, but was wiped out within 30 years by a combination of violent guerrilla conflict with settlers known as the "Black War", intertribal conflict, from the late 1820s, the spread of infectious diseases to which they had no immunity. The conflict, which peaked between 1825 and 1831, led to more than three years of martial law, cost the lives of 1,100 Aboriginals and settlers; the island was permanently settled by Europeans in 1803 as a penal settlement of the British Empire to prevent claims to the land by the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. The island was part of the Colony of New South Wales but became a separate, self-governing colony under the name Van Diemen's Land in 1825. 75,000 convicts were sent to Van Diemen's Land before transportation ceased in 1853. In 1854 the present Constitution of Tasmania was passed, the following year the colony received permission to change its name to Tasmania.
In 1901 it became a state through the process of the Federation of Australia. The state is named after Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who made the first reported European sighting of the island on 24 November 1642. Tasman named the island Anthony van Diemen's Land after his sponsor Anthony van Diemen, the Governor of the Dutch East Indies; the name was shortened to Van Diemen's Land by the British. It was renamed Tasmania in honour of its first European discoverer on 1 January 1856. Tasmania was sometimes referred to as "Dervon," as mentioned in the Jerilderie Letter written by the notorious Australian bushranger Ned Kelly in 1879; the colloquial expression for the state is "Tassie". Tasmania is colloquially shortened to "Tas," when used in business names and website addresses. TAS is the Australia Post abbreviation for the state; the reconstructed Palawa kani language name for Tasmania is Lutriwita. The island was adjoined to the mainland of Australia until the end of the last glacial period about 10,000 years ago.
Much of the island is composed of Jurassic dolerite intrusions through other rock types, sometimes forming large columnar joints. Tasmania has the world's largest areas of dolerite, with many distinctive mountains and cliffs formed from this rock type; the central plateau and the southeast portions of the island are dolerites. Mount Wellington above Hobart is a good example. In the southern midlands as far south as Hobart, the dolerite is underlaid by sandstone and similar sedimentary stones. In the southwest, Precambrian quartzites were formed from ancient sea sediments and form strikingly sharp ridges and ranges, such as Federation Peak or Frenchmans Cap. In the northeast and east, continental granites can be seen, such as at Freycinet, similar to coastal granites on mainland Australia. In the northwest and west, mineral-rich volcanic rock can be seen at Mount Read near Rosebery, or at Mount Lyell near Queenstown. Present in the south and northwest is limestone with caves; the quartzite and dolerite areas in the higher mountains show evidence of glaciation, much of Australia's glaciated landscape is found on the Central Plateau and the Southwest.
Cradle Mountain, another dolerite peak, for example, was a nunatak. The combination of these different rock types contributes to scenery, distinct from any other region of the world. In the far southwest corner of the state, the geology is wholly quartzite, which gives the mountains the false impression of having snow-capped peaks year round. Evidence indicates the presence of Aborigines in Tasmania about 42,000 years ago. Rising sea levels cut Tasmania off from mainland Australia about 10,000 years ago and by the time of European contact, the Aboriginal people in Tasmania had nine major nations or ethnic groups. At the time of the British occupation and colonisation in 1803, the indigenous population was estimated at between 3,000 and 10,000. Historian Lyndall Ryan's analysis of population studies led her to conclude that there were about 7,000 spread throughout the island's nine nations. J. B. Plomley and Rhys Jones, settled on a figure of 3,000 to 4,000, they engaged in fire-stick farming, hunted game including kangaroo and wallabies, caught seals, mutton-birds and fish and lived as nine separate "nations" on the island, which they knew as "Trouwunna".
The first reported sighting of Tasmania by a European was on 24 November 1642 by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who landed at today's Blackman Bay. More than a century in 1772, a French expedition le
Salt marsh
A salt marsh or saltmarsh known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water, flooded by the tides. It is dominated by dense stands of salt-tolerant plants such as grasses, or low shrubs; these plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh in trapping and binding sediments. Salt marshes play a large role in the aquatic food web and the delivery of nutrients to coastal waters, they support terrestrial animals and provide coastal protection. Salt marshes occur on low-energy shorelines in temperate and high-latitudes which can be stable, emerging, or submerging depending if the sedimentation is greater, equal to, or lower than relative sea level rise, respectively; these shorelines consist of mud or sand flats which are nourished with sediment from inflowing rivers and streams. These include sheltered environments such as embankments and the leeward side of barrier islands and spits.
In the tropics and sub-tropics they are replaced by mangroves. Most salt marshes have a low topography with low elevations but a vast wide area, making them hugely popular for human populations. Salt marshes are located among different landforms based on their physical and geomorphological settings; such marsh landforms include deltaic marshes, back-barrier, open coast and drowned-valley marshes. Deltaic marshes are associated with large rivers where many occur in Southern Europe such as the Camargue, France in the Rhone delta or the Ebro delta in Spain, they are extensive within the rivers of the Mississippi Delta in the United States. In New Zealand, most salt marshes occur at the head of estuaries in areas where there is little wave action and high sedimentation; such marshes are located in Awhitu Regional Park in Auckland, the Manawatu Estuary, the Avon-Heathcote Estuary in Christchurch. Back-barrier marshes are sensitive to the reshaping of barriers in the landward side of which they have been formed.
They are common along much of the eastern coast of the Frisian Islands. Large, shallow coastal embayments can hold salt marshes with examples including Morecambe Bay and Portsmouth in Britain and the Bay of Fundy in North America. Salt marshes are sometimes included in lagoons, the difference is not marked, they have a big impact on the biodiversity of the area. Salt marsh ecology involves complex food webs which include primary producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers; the low physical energy and high grasses provide a refuge for animals. Many marine fish use salt marshes as nursery grounds for their young before they move to open waters. Birds may raise their young among the high grasses, because the marsh provides both sanctuary from predators and abundant food sources which include fish trapped in pools, insects and worms. Saltmarshes across 99 countries were mapped by al.. 2017. A total of 5,495,089 hectares of mapped saltmarsh across 43 countries and territories are represented in a Geographic Information Systems polygon shapefile.
This estimate is at the low end of previous estimates. The most extensive saltmarshes worldwide are found outside the tropics, notably including the low-lying, ice-free coasts and estuaries of the North Atlantic which are well represented in their global polygon dataset; the formation begins as tidal flats gain elevation relative to sea level by sediment accretion, subsequently the rate and duration of tidal flooding decreases so that vegetation can colonize on the exposed surface. The arrival of propagules of pioneer species such as seeds or rhizome portions are combined with the development of suitable conditions for their germination and establishment in the process of colonisation; when rivers and streams arrive at the low gradient of the tidal flats, the discharge rate reduces and suspended sediment settles onto the tidal flat surface, helped by the backwater effect of the rising tide. Mats of filamentous blue-green algae can fix silt and clay sized sediment particles to their sticky sheaths on contact which can increase the erosion resistance of the sediments.
This assists the process of sediment accretion to allow colonising species to grow. These species retain sediment washed in from the rising tide around their stems and leaves and form low muddy mounds which coalesce to form depositional terraces, whose upward growth is aided by a sub-surface root network which binds the sediment. Once vegetation is established on depositional terraces further sediment trapping and accretion can allow rapid upward growth of the marsh surface such that there is an associated rapid decrease in the depth and duration of tidal flooding; as a result, competitive species that prefer higher elevations relative to sea level can inhabit the area and a succession of plant communities develops. Coastal salt marshes can be distinguished from terrestrial habitats by the daily tidal flow that occurs and continuously floods the area, it is an important process in delivering sediments and plant water supply to the marsh. At higher elevations in the upper marsh zone, there is much less tidal inflow, resulting in lower salinity levels
Common wombat
The common wombat known as the coarse-haired wombat or bare-nosed wombat, is a marsupial, one of three extant species of wombats and the only one in the genus Vombatus. The common wombat grows to a weight of 26 kg; the common wombat was first described by George Shaw in 1800. Three subspecies are noted, though their distinctness is somewhat uncertain: V. u. hirsutus is found on the Australian mainland. V. u. tasmaniensis is found in Tasmania. It is smaller. V. u. ursinus, the nominate form, was once found throughout the Bass Strait Islands, but is now restricted to Flinders Island to the north of Tasmania. Its population was estimated at 4,000 in 1996 and is listed as vulnerable by the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and IUCN Red List. Hackett's wombat was the other species in the genus, inhabiting the southwest of Australia. Being around the same size as V. ursinus, with an average weight of 30 kg, V. hacketti went extinct at the end of the Late Pleistocene, in the Quaternary extinction event.
Common wombats are widespread in the cooler and better-watered parts of southern and eastern Australia, including Tasmania, in mountain districts as far north as the south of Queensland, but is declining in western Victoria and South Australia. Common wombats can be found at any elevation in the south of their range, but in the north of their range are only found in higher, more mountainous areas, they may be found in a variety of habitats including rainforest, eucalyptus forest, alpine grassland, coastal areas. In some regions, they have adapted to farmland and can be seen grazing in open fields with cattle and sheep. Common wombats are built close to the ground; when grown, they can reach between 80 and 130 cm, weigh between 17 and 40 kg. The wombats found on Tasmania and Flinders Island are smaller than their mainland counterparts, it is distinguished from both hairy-nosed wombats by its bald nose. Common wombats are a solitary, territorial species, with each wombat having an established range in which it lives and feeds.
In this area, they dig a tunnel system, with tunnels ranging from 2 to 20 m in length, along with many sidetunnels. Only one entrance to the burrow exists, although they may create a smaller one with which to escape. Many wombats can live in the same burrow, wombats live in the same burrow for their whole lifespan unless the wombat is forced out of the burrow by farmers or other animal species, or unless the burrow is destroyed. Nocturnal, the common wombat does come out during the day in cooler weather, such as in early morning or late afternoon. Common wombats are herbivorous, subsisting on grass, snow tussocks, other plant materials. Foraging is done during the night, they are the only marsupial in the world whose teeth grow which allows them to maintain a diet consisting of native grasses. The common wombat can produce a single joey; the gestation period is about 20–30 days, the young remain in the pouch for five months. When leaving the pouch, they weigh between 6.5 kg. The joey is weaned around 12 to 15 months of age, is independent at 18 months of age.
Wombats have an average lifespan of 15 years in the wild and 20 years in captivity
