On Friday we went to the Billabong Sanctuary.
a really incredible place where all sorts of native Australian animals are housed. Our tour began by meeting Tonka, a really cool wombat that seemed to be half asleep.
and actually, he was! Wombats are nocturnal because they don't sweat. They burrow underground during the day to avoid the heat and come out to eat at night when it's cooler. There are three species of wombat. Tonka is a bare-nosed wombat, simply because he has no hair on his nose. He was rescued from his mother's pouch after she was hit by a car and raised in the park ranger's homes.
The rangers used Tonka to show us a really cool adaptation/secret weapon. Wombats have a very thick cartilaginous plate on their butts which they use to block the entrance to their burrows. They have almost no nerve endings there and predators trying to eat them can scratch and claw at it all day. Tonka wouldn't care. The ranger demonstrated this by punching him a few times in the butt. Tonka didn't even flinch let alone open his eyes from his nap. Apparently if predators do get into their burrows, they lay flat on the ground and wait for the predator to step on them. They then use that plate to slam the predators head into the ceiling of the burrow, and suffocate them. "Death by butt" as one of the rangers eloquently put it. After we all got a chance to pet Tonka, we were led to the Koala enclosure.
This is Houdini, so named because he escaped several times from several different enclosures in several different parks. Apparently Koalas also have a cartilaginous plate in their butts, but theirs is much thinner and meant to make sitting in trees for literally 20+ hrs a day more comfortable. They also have a scent gland on their chests which make them smell dank and kind of sour. They are incredibly soft with very thick hair to compensate for their complete lack of body fat. They also don't drink water. Ever. They get all their water and nutrients from the leaves they eat, which are actually poisonous. They also have a really cool kind of second thumb which helps them hold onto things
Like me! no amount of smelliness was going to keep me from holding one of the worlds cutest creatures.
After the Koala, were were shown some of the parks scalier friends.
Python
salt water crocodile
much bigger salt water crocodile
We were then released to play with the 17 kangaroos freely hopping around the park.
It was definitely an experience I will never forget and one I immensely enjoyed.
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