[PW] attention all w*mb*ts

[Peter Macinnis]

As an Australian whose first degree was in zoology, perhaps you will 
permit me to clarify a few points.  First, there are three species of 
wombat (or four, if you include the tree-wombat, _Phascolarctos 
cinereus_).  That is generally called a koala, but there is evidence 
that either wombats are burrowing koalas or the koala is a tree-wombat.

The wombat in the article is not the usual wombat (_Vombatus ursinus_), 
but the less usual hairy-nosed wombat (_Lasiorhinus sp._), and the 
southern hairy-nosed wombat (_L. latifrons_) at that.  Given that 
species' conservation status (vulnerable), that is good news. 	It would 
be a far better thing if it were a northern hairy-nosed wombat (_L. 
krefftii_, which is critically endangered), but it's a start.

Further, the birth is only the first zoo birth in seven years to take 
place *in the USA*.  Contrary to popular opinion, there are quite a few 
wombats in Australia, some of them in zoos, and they reproduce as a 
matter of course.

peter macinnis

Virginia Brown wrote:
> The first zoo birth of a wombat in seven years has happened at Brookfield 
> Zoo.
> 
> http://www.brookfieldzoo.org/pgpages/pagegen.362.aspx
> 
> enjoy!


-- 

   _--|\     Peter Macinnis, science gossip and word herder
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  \.--._*<-- originator of the all-terrain penguin-drawn sled
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