Experts left scratching their heads as wombat wanders into ocean

April 24, 2024 8:49 AM

Experts left scratching their heads as wombat wanders into ocean. A couple holidaying in Tasmania's remote north-west have captured a wombat foraging in the ocean. The footage has surprised wombat experts, who say the behaviour is highly unusual.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (30 comments total)

Clearly, the wombat heard about sea level rise and is working on evolving to the aquatic life. It could be the first mersupial!
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:00 AM on April 24 [39 favorites]

Aqua-bat!

The video in the linked article is pretty wonderful. Strong recommend.

P S Mersupial is very good.
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 9:06 AM on April 24 [5 favorites]

mersupial
Naughty step, 2 hours.
posted by BCMagee at 9:06 AM on April 24 [3 favorites]

awwww she wants some feesh!
posted by supermedusa at 9:21 AM on April 24

I’m reminded of “deep” pot-fueled conversations with my beach friends in college. “Listen, man, some wombats are just more in tune with the planetary rhythms, man. They belong in the sea, bro.”
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:23 AM on April 24 [1 favorite]

I mean, their poop is cube shaped. I wouldn't put anything past them.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:27 AM on April 24 [4 favorites]

Nature finds a way.
posted by Chuffy at 9:32 AM on April 24

“I went to the ocean because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
-Henry David Wombat
posted by indexy at 9:32 AM on April 24 [15 favorites]

Nature finds a way.

Regrettably this is also true of brain parasites. Knowing this has made me reflexively suspicious about any "look at this aberrant behavior in this cute animal lol" posts, to the significant detriment of my internal monologue.
posted by mhoye at 9:34 AM on April 24 [8 favorites]

Did they bring their shark repellent wombat-spray?
posted by chavenet at 9:46 AM on April 24 [1 favorite]

chariot pulled by 𝚠̶𝚘̶𝚖̶𝚋̶𝚊̶𝚝̶𝚜̶ brain parasites
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:49 AM on April 24 [1 favorite]

Most of the times in my life when I’ve really needed a vacation were also times when my personal sentience was at its lowest ebb. Emotions exist entirely independent of sentience, thus animals can and do have emotions. Perhaps the same is true for needing a vacation.
posted by Ryvar at 10:18 AM on April 24 [2 favorites]

Maybe the wombat just thought “f*ck it, kelp sounds good today!”
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:21 AM on April 24 [2 favorites]

Bless you Genji and your optimism. My first thoughts went to nihilist penguins #SLYTHerzog
posted by rubatan at 10:28 AM on April 24 [2 favorites]

Previously: I hear he made it to France, eventually.
posted by ringu0 at 10:49 AM on April 24

You see there are three things that spur the wombat from the sand
The waking of all creatures that live on the land
And with just one faint glance, back into the sea
The wombat lingers, with it's wandering eye
posted by credulous at 10:57 AM on April 24 [4 favorites]

If you were smart, you'd be wandering into the ocean too.
posted by AlSweigart at 11:29 AM on April 24

But I only wanted to wade in the waves!
If that's not the way a good wombat behaves,
if good wombats stick to the land,
my sin is adventure, like when man left caves!
Now, if you don't mind, I'll get back to the waves
and feel my toes sink in the sand.
posted by pracowity at 11:47 AM on April 24 [3 favorites]

Ctrl-F in the article to see if they'd named the wombat 'Reginald Perrin' - came away disappointed.
posted by phigmov at 12:30 PM on April 24 [1 favorite]

Parallel: In the 1950s, Japanese researchers working on and with the Snow Monkey (Macaca fuscata ) used to lay down food on the beach to attract the monkeys within sight so that they could carry out their observations. The macaques relished the sweet potatoes but hated the sand and spent a long time brushing as much off as possible. It took an immature female called (by the research team, not her Mum) Imo to take a sweet potato down to the sea and wash off the sand. Not only was this much more efficient, it made the whole thing taste better and she used to dip the tuber in the water between bites. Interestingly, other macaques caught on to this useful habit. Some more rapidly than others: the first to catch on were other immature females, then immature males, then adult females and even … finally … adult males. Imo was clearly one of the sharper knives in the macaque drawer because she was able to generalise her trick when the researchers replaced sweet potatoes with wheat. Fed up with picking this delicacy from the sand, grain by piffling grain, Imo scooped up a handful of the mixture and stalked off to the river where she intuited that the grain would float and the sand sink.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:45 PM on April 24 [8 favorites]

The footage has surprised wombat experts, who say the behaviour is highly unusual.

Wombat or wombat not, from the evidence one might think there is no surfeit of unusual behavior in Australia.
posted by y2karl at 1:13 PM on April 24

Harold??? Is that you?
posted by dmd at 1:48 PM on April 24 [2 favorites]

he was pining for the fjords
posted by Soliloquy at 2:19 PM on April 24

How many bats would a wombat wom if a wombat could wom bats?
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:15 PM on April 24 [2 favorites]

This is begging for a bredlik, but I haven't the cycles today to make one myself.
posted by humbug at 4:39 PM on April 24 [1 favorite]

We will see more of these things happening if we don't stop going on about how great whales are.
posted by Ashenmote at 12:22 AM on April 25

Assault and wombattery.
posted by y2karl at 11:47 AM on April 25 [1 favorite]

we call our soon to be born baby "wombat" as a nickname since we haven't decided on a name yet, and if she takes after me then she'll love water and the beach, so this aquatic wombat brings me great joy.
posted by numaner at 11:51 AM on April 25 [3 favorites]

we call our soon to be born baby "wombat"

Well, let me tell you, I had trouble seeing those quotes for some reason, and spent a bit time wondering under what circumstances you could be expecting a baby wombat. I'm sure those circumstances exist, mind you, and it was an entertaining few minutes.
posted by mollweide at 4:00 PM on April 25 [1 favorite]

Early awaiting the I Did a Thing YouTube take on this.

OTOH, could be ordinary wombat behavior to kill ticks and fleas.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 7:11 PM on April 25