(CNN) A team of scientists claims to have unraveled one of the animal kingdom's more peculiar mysteries: why wombat poop is cube-shaped.

The wombat, native to Australia, produces about 80 to 100 cubes of poop each night. It is known to deposit piles of dung outside burrows and on top of rocks and logs, most likely to communicate with other wombats, researchers believe.

"Wombats have really strong sense of smell that they use probably for communication," said University of Tasmania wildlife ecologist Scott Carver, who co-authored the study. "We don't know what that information they're sharing is, but it might be something about mating, it might be something about general advertising about who's in the area."

It is thought that the cubed shape of the poop means it is less likely that it will roll away, and is prominent for other individuals to notice and smell, Carver added.

But how the wombat produces the cubed shapes is a phenomenon that has puzzled many observers of the furry marsupial.

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