World Wombat Day

Today is World Wombat Day and a little way back I shared some popular Australian children’s books based on these special marsupials. Go here : https://brizzymaysbooksandbruschettasite.wordpress.com/2020/05/12/wombats/

Firstly, five fascinating Wombat facts : 

1. Wombats are stocky and close to the ground. That does not stop them from running at speeds up to 40 kilometres per hour which is just under retired sprinter Usain Bolt’s fastest recorded speed.
2. A group of wombats is called a ‘wisdom of wombats’ a ‘mob of wombats’ or a ‘colony of wombats’. 
3. The name wombat comes from the Darug language, spoken by the Traditional Owners of Sydney.
4. The southern hairy-nosed wombat is the state fauna emblem of South Australia. And my favourite :
5. Wombat poop is different to any other animal’s, because wombats are famous for doing cube shaped poop– pumping out around 100 of these a day. It’s all to do with their slow digestive system.

In recent months I’ve shared my developing interest in Aboriginal Astronomy and related artwork. Our indigenous could tell the weather for food finding purposes by watching the night skies. For example, moon haloes, or rings around the moon, are used by Aboriginal people as a weather predictor since ice crystals indicate high moisture levels in the atmosphere.

Many of the Dreamtime legends are depicted in the stars.

Here’s Ngarga warendj, the dancing wombat by artist, Mick Harding.

” Warriin the Wombat is a solitary fella. He is a vegetarian who spends most of the day in his burrow and feeds at night. In our Taungwarrung creation stories, Warriin and Marram the Kangaroo were good mates. One day they had a fight because Warriin would not let Marram into his burrow. Marram cut off Warriin’s tail with his axe. Warriin was so mad he threw a spear at Marram and this became stuck in his back end and is now his tail”.

                 – Mick Harding  of the Yowong-Illam-Baluk clan.