The Animal That Makes Cubes

One animal makes square poop. Send this to someone who thinks nature has no sense of humour. In Australia there is a low, heavy, furry animal called a wombat. It digs long tunnels, it eats grass all night, and it leaves behind small neat cubes.

Jedna životinja stvara kockasti izmet. Pošalji ovo nekome tko misli da priroda nema smisla za humor. U Australiji živi niska, teška, dlakava životinja zvana vombat. Kopa duge tunele, cijelu noć jede travu, i za sobom ostavlja male uredne kocke.

For years nobody could explain it. Corners are difficult to make. In every other animal on the planet, soft things that leave a body come out round or long. So scientists looked closely inside a wombat and found the answer in the last stretch of its gut.

Godinama nitko to nije mogao objasniti. Uglove je teško napraviti. Kod svake druge životinje na planetu, mekane stvari koje izađu iz tijela izlaze okrugle ili duguljaste. Zato su znanstvenici pomno pogledali unutar vombata i pronašli odgovor u posljednjem dijelu njegova crijeva.

That stretch is not the same all the way around. Some parts of the wall are stiff and squeeze hard and fast. Other parts are soft and simply stretch. The stiff parts press the corners in, again and again, until the shape sets and holds. The wombat then stacks the finished cubes on rocks and logs to tell other wombats whose ground this is. Round ones would roll straight off. Cubes stay exactly where they are put.

Taj dio nije isti cijelim putem. Neki dijelovi stijenke su kruti i stišću jako i brzo. Drugi dijelovi su mekani i jednostavno se rastežu. Kruti dijelovi utiskuju uglove, iznova i iznova, dok se oblik ne učvrsti. Vombat zatim slaže gotove kocke na kamenje i trupce da drugim vombatima pokaže čiji je ovo teritorij. Okrugle bi se odmah otkotrljale. Kocke ostaju točno tamo gdje su stavljene.