Tasmania - The Wombats

We all know that Australia has its own set of animals and wombats are one of those. They are only seen in South-eastern Australia mainland and Tasmania. They are quite plentiful in Tasmania but just like wallabies they are not easy to see because they sort of blend in.

Also just like wallabies they are difficult to get close to (unless you are in a National Park and you are lucky).

And what you most often see is them walking away in a fashion which appears quite debonair but can be quite fast, resulting in a this type of photo:

But I tell you they are adorable.

They have a cute face

and a seriously solid body plan.

Honestly what is with this little bum hanging out at the back?

One evening at Castle Mountain National Park when everybody was gone for the day and I was walking around I spend a good amount of time watching a mother and her teenager kid fighting because the kid was trying to feed and the mother would not let it happened. It was really funny little scene to watch.

You can see in the photo above is the kid trying to hang on while she is walking away. She was actually dragging him/her behind.

I just thought that they were great: Peaceful herbivores (marsupial obviously), very quiet, unlike Tasmanian Devils and actually much bigger than Tasmanian Devils. Those I saw were just under a metre in length whereas Tasmanian Devils were probably about 75cm (so 3/4 of the length) and much much lighter in weight (I would guess Tasmanian Devils are about a third of the weight of wombats). Wombats are very solidly built. You want to imagine a large matchbox with little piece of matches in the corners as legs and you pretty much have the general sense of them. With a body like this it is good that they are herbivores.