Wombs eat young shoots of herbs. Sometimes moss, roots of plants, berries or mushrooms are also used for food. The divided upper lip allows wombats to choose very precisely what they eat. Thanks to it, the front teeth can go straight to the ground and cut off even the smallest shoots.
The sense of smell plays an important role in choosing food for active wombats at night. Metabolism in wombats is very slow and effective. To digest food, wombats need up to 14 days. They are the most economical water users from all mammals, after the camel: wombat is only 22 milliliters of water per kilogram of body weight per day.
Other animals perfectly suited to the conditions of life in Australia, like representatives of the kangaroo family, consume four times as much water. Wombs badly suffer from cold. The feces of wombats have the form of cubes, it is caused by the special structure of their anus.
The area of the wombat sites varies depending on the external conditions from 5 to 25 hectares. Wombs mark their territory with excrement and built dwellings. Wombat protects its site quite aggressively.
