Wombats Produce Cube-Shaped Poop
Of all the things a digestive tract could do, the wombat's chose to be sculptural. Their droppings come out in tidy little cubes — roughly two centimetres on each side — and they leave them perched on rocks, logs, and the occasional tin roof.
Why cubes? The going theory is that the last metre or so of wombat intestine has unusual elastic stripes. As waste shuffles along, the firmer regions of muscle press in while the softer regions relax, slowly shaping the contents into a six-sided brick. It's plumbing meets pottery.
The biological reason is more practical than artistic. Wombats use their droppings as territory markers, and they like them to sit somewhere visible. A sphere rolls away. A cube stays put. Evolution, ever the dignified engineer, simply chose the shape that would not embarrass the wombat by tumbling into a ditch.
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