All three wombat species, the Southern and Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat and the Bare-nosed Wombat, are marsupials that are endemic to Australia. They all have powerful claws and limbs for digging borrows with the two Hairy-nosed wombats often creating large multi-burrow complexes.

Southern Hairy-nosed Wombats occur in semi-arid grasslands from south-eastern Western Australia along the Nullabour Plains, Eyre and Yorke Peninsula and into the Murray Mallee towards the NSW border.

They eat native and introduced grasses and forbs as well as saltbush. They have specialised teeth that grow continuously.

FUN FACTS

• Female wombats have a backwards opening pouch

• Wombats can run over 40km an hour, over short distances

• Wombats have a hard weaponised backside for crushing the skulls of predators against the roof of their burrows

• The Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat is the South Australian State fauna emblem

You can meet Snuffles our Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat when you book a Wildlife Encounter at Animals Anonymous Headquarters in Mylor.