Friday, June 17, 2011

Busting Australian Myths

This is an adult wombat, but still a small one.

..and this is just a baby...cute isn't it? just wait until it grows up though



Check out those teeth, they continue to grow so have to be worn down by biting roots, bark, fingers and ankles.

Believe it or not, this is a typical wombat burrow, they can do this in just one night...and you complain about Gopher holes



Busting Australian Myths

The humble Wombat known locally as the Bulldozer of the bush and that pretty much sums it up. It’s got huge teeth like a Rabbit which it uses to snip underground tree roots and very long, very strong claws which it uses for digging it’s burrows…like a Rabbit hole big enough for you to crawl down. But they’re dumb, very dumb and quite aggressive, the ones you see in the movies are all babies, they grow to over a metre long and 100 pounds and they bite. Typically going for the ankles and feet, you would be lucky to be able to walk after the first bite and they just keep going at you.
My uncle saved one from it’s dead mothers pouch after someone hit it on the road, back home he placed it carefully on the ground and they all laughed as it cutely burrowed out of sight in just a minute or so…and that was the last time they saw it for the 18 months it took to catch it again and move it back to the bush. But in that 18 months it ate all the neighbors gardens, dug up all their manicured lawns, overturned trees and caused incredible damage around the whole suburb. His garden looked like a building site, and nightly it would move tons of garden soil wherever it wanted; by morning the whole yard was rearranged…my uncle got over his love for Wombats quick smart.


.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Tempo,
Very interesting post, there is obviously a great deal about the wombat that I didn't know.
What a shock for your Uncle, and I bet the neighbours didn't think much of it all either.

Pearl said...

Tempo, are you messing with me?! What the hell IS that?! I think I've been falling-down drunk and seen something like that crawling out of my closet. I assumed it was a hallucination...

Pearl

Windsmoke. said...

Now i know why Wombats are called bulldozers because he bulldozed his way through your neighbours front garden to such an extent that it looked like a terrorist bomb had gone off :-).

Tempo said...

@Magsx2, My uncles neighbors didn't know for sure that it was his fault... he denied everything!

Hi Pearl, You've never seen one before? Oh, this lump is for real all right. Ive put up a full picture so you know what the thing looks like, big and heavy.

@Windsmoke, He wrecked all the gardens, ate all their trees and shrubs and tunneled under their houses so all they could hear all night was the wombat crashing about. Like a HUGE underground Possum.

Anonymous said...

Between red backs, koalas and wombats, does Oz have any creature that is not disagreeable (inc Aussies)?

LOL

AV <----- Note, Kiwi

Tempo said...

Ahhh, let me think about this..



NO!

Anonymous said...

Hahahahaha...