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wombat
(redirected from Wombats)

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Acronyms, Wikipedia 0.01 sec.
wombat, shy marsupial marsupial , member of the order Marsupialia, or pouched mammals. With the exception of the New World opossums and an obscure S American family (Caenolestidae), marsupials are now found only in Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea, and a few adjacent islands.
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 of Australia and Tasmania, related to the koala. The wombat is a thick-set animal with a large head, short legs (giving it a shuffling gait), and a very short tail. It is about 3 ft (91.5 cm) long. Its snout is either naked, as in the species Vombatus ursinus, or furred, as in Lasiorhinus latifrons. Its incisors, the only teeth, grow continually, like those of rodents. Wombats are native to savanna forests and grasslands. They are solitary, nocturnal animals that feed chiefly on grass, roots, and bark and have been known to gnaw down large trees. They are powerful burrowers, digging tunnels by lying on their sides and pushing out soil with their feet. Their burrows, which may be 100 ft (31.5 m) long, terminate in grassy nests. A single infant is carried by its mother in a marsupial pouch for a period of 6 to 12 months. Extinct wombats as large as hippopotamuses are known from fossil evidence. Wombats are classified in the phylum Chordata Chordata , phylum of animals having a notochord, or dorsal stiffening rod, as the chief internal skeletal support at some stage of their development. Most chordates are vertebrates (animals with backbones), but the phylum also includes some small marine invertebrate
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, subphylum Vertebrata, class Mammalia, order Marsupialia, family Vombatidae.

wombat

Enlarge picture
Common wombat (Vombatus ursinus).
(credit: Warren Garst-Tom Stack and Associates)
Either of two species (family Vombatidae) of nocturnal Australian marsupials that are heavily built, 28–47 in. (70–120 cm) long, and tailless. The single newborn develops in the mother's pouch for about five months. Wombats eat grasses, tree bark, and shrub roots. They make a grassy nest at the end of a long burrow. The common wombat (Vombatus ursinus) of southeastern Australia and Tasmania, considered a pest, has coarse dark hair and short ears. The rare Queensland hairy-nosed wombat (Lasiorhinus barnardi) has fine fur and longer ears; protected by law, the population lives principally in a national park.


wombat
any of various burrowing herbivorous Australian marsupials, esp Vombatus ursinus, constituting the family Vombatidae and having short limbs, a heavy body, and coarse dense fur

1.WOMBAT - Waste Of Money, Brains, And Time.

Problems which are both profoundly uninteresting in themselves and unlikely to benefit anyone interesting even if solved. Often used in fanciful constructions such as "wrestling with a wombat".

See also crawling horror, SMOP.
2.(programming)wombat - A metasyntactic variable in Commonwealth Hackish.
3.(computer)wombat - wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk.


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Creative Paper's Darren Simpson said wombats are much cleaner than kangaroos, making it easier to make the product.
WE'VE teamed up with Carling to give you and two friends an exclusive chance to see The Wombats at Glasgow's Carling Academy.
Byline: by THOMAS MARTIN LIVERPOOL indie band The Wombats have teamed up with Les Dennis to record a charity single.
 
 
 
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