Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Diprotodontia
Family: Vombatidae
Genus Lasiorhinus
Species: Lasiorhinus latifrons

The above Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat was photographed at Yarrawong Sanctuary. It is vulnerable to extinction.

Southern Hairy-nosed Wombats are similar in size to Common Wombats, but tthey have softer, silkier, grey fur, longer ears and fine fur on their much broader nose. IIt is a marsupial mammal indigenous to Australia and totally protected in South Australia.

The southern hairy-nosed wombat is a squat quadruped with short, thick limbs that are equipped with short flattened claws. Its tail is reduced. Its proportions are typical of digging mammals. These are the smallest of the wombats, attaining a meter in length at most. They have a large, broad head that sports small eyes and pointed ears. The fur of this wombat covers the entire body, including the nose, hence its name.

The term 'Wombat' refers to any of the three species of Wombats.

This mammal is well adapted to arid conditions, spending the day in a deep burrow in a communal warren. Each warren is home to five to ten individuals and the warrens themselves are frequently in groups, leading to high local densities.

When in a burrow, Wombat's temperature drops considerably, thus conserving energy and reducing the loss of water by evaporation. At night it emerges to feed on grasses and herbs. All wombats are diggers, as is suggested by their powerful front limbs.

This species is mainly nocturnal, feeding upon grasses, roots, sedges, bark, and fungi which are often highly fibrous and low in water and protein.

Though breeding can occur at any time of year, most young are born from September to December. Mating may be delayed for several years at a time if the sporadic rainfall in its habitat is insufficient to bring on a flush of plant growth.

The Wombat, as indicated above, is a marsupial. The female has two teats in a large, backwardly directed pouch but it is usual for only one young to be reared, remaining in the pouch until about nine months old and thereafter following its mother at heel until becoming indeppendent when about 12 months.

The female becomes sexually mature at three years of age. But under unfavorable conditions the rate of reproduction is very low.

Due to their strength and determination, they often push through farm fences, leaving a hole large enough for undesirable intruders such as dingos, foxes and rabbits. Before being protected by law, it was often hunted for the value of its fur pelt.

Only three species of Wombat survived the Pleistocene to 'modern' times, i.e. the last 10,000 years. The Sourthern Hairy-nosed Wombat was then distributed from the eastern corner of Western Australia across South Australia to the Murray River. Its close relative, the Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat (Lasiorhinus krefftii), was still present in northern Victoria and southern New South Wales a well as in southeastern Queensland, but fossill records show that it had been much more wide-spread during the late Pleisttocene.,

The Common Wombat (Vombatus ursinus) occupied a stretch of country from southeastern Queensland, through New South Wales along the Great Dividing Range and associated ranges, to Victoria, where it was spread over most of the state, except the northwesternn corner.

Almost the first thing that Europeeans did when they sighted a Wombat win 1797 was to eat it.

At first the discovery of Australia's strange and exotic animals caused a flurry of interest. Many specimens were sent back to England for the zoologists to examine; but for the colonists, life was a grim battle as they set about the task of clearing the land for crops and foor better pastures for their sheep and cattle. And they had little time to be sentimental about the animals whose land they were altering so irrevocably.

"If it moves, shoot it' seems to have been the general rule.

Notes Barbara Triggs: "Two hundred years later, the Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat is Australia's rareest mammal, with only about 65 inddividuals surviving in the last known colony in central Queensland. Thee Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat is now confined to the Nullabor Plain and a few small semi-arid areas of South Australia. The Common Wombat has fared a little better, but is has now almost disappeared from the western half of Victoria and it is absent from all but two of the Bass Strait Islands as well as from many parts of New South Wales."

The wombat's biggest threats are from being hit by cars, and by the clearing of land for agriculture, as well as by predation from the Dingo and the Wedge-tail eagle.

Conservation Status: Endangered (Likely to become extinct if threats continue).

References:

Ronald Strahan, A Photographic Guide to Mammals of Australia, The Australian Museum and New Holland Publishers, Ltd., 1995.

Triggs, Barbara, illustrated by Roos Goldingay, The Wombat: Common Wombats in Australia, UNSW Press, 1996.

Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat - Debra L. Rodriguez http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/lasiorhinus/l._latifrons$narrative.html

The Perth Zoo Fact Sheet - http://www.perthzoo.wa.gov.au/wombat.html

The Wombat Burrow - http://www.cs.newpaltz.edu/~robers91/wombatburrow/info_southern.html

Faunal Emblem of South Australia - http://www.sacentral.sa.gov.au/emblems/wombat1.htm