Which mammal is known for cube-shaped feces?

The mammal known for cube-shaped feces is the wombat.

Wombats are stout, burrowing marsupials native to Australia. Their unusual droppings are not merely square-looking: they have distinct faces and edges, making them the only known animal to produce naturally cube-shaped feces. Wombats use the feces as scent-marking signals, placing them on rocks, logs, and other prominent surfaces where cubes are less likely to roll away.

The shape is formed inside the intestine, not by a square anus. Research has shown that the final part of the wombat’s intestine has regions with different stiffness and elasticity. As material dries and moves through those sections, the intestinal walls shape it into cubes. The discovery helped overturn the old popular misconception that wombats possess square sphincters.

Wombats are herbivores with continuously growing incisor teeth and powerful claws for digging. They are mostly nocturnal or crepuscular, and an adult can produce roughly 80 to 100 small pieces in a night. In 2019, research into their feces won an Ig Nobel Prize in Physics, bringing scientific attention to one of Australia’s strangest natural adaptations.