The Winter Olympics isn’t just a chance to see incredible athletic competition, it’s also a chance for reporters from all over the world to learn new turns of phrase.
Why did this Australian competitor call the snowboard halfpipe ‘two wombats in a plastic bag’?
Here’s what that means.
Photo by Sam Ruttyn/Newspix/Getty Images
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
Wombats, if you didn’t know, are large burrowing Australian marsupials that can either be very social, or total loners and very territorial. They’re pretty much my favorite animal.
Photo credit should read SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty Images
So if you were to put two wombats inside a plastic bag it’s likely things would be tense until you saw what kind of wombats would be in there. Anything could happen — and that’s what the snowboarder meant. Now we’ve established that, here are a few fun facts about wombats:
- They have one of the most impressive butts in the animal world. A wombat butt is solid, almost entirely made of cartilage, and they’re so confident in their butt prowess that they will back up towards predators and dare them to butt bite.
- Wombats poop in cubes. This allows them to mark territory without the risk of their droppings rolling away.
- Their diet consists of such rough vegetation that it takes up to 14 days for them to digest a meal.
- Their burrows can be up to 650 feet in length.
- Their teeth are made to cut through tough roots and branches, making it very painful if bitten. Source: Me getting bitten at Taronga Park Zoo in Sydney when I was 10 years old on a field trip and stuck my finger in the cage.
So now you know a little more about one of the world’s best animals.
