Meet Peggy, Anzac, and Cupcake. Not only are all three Marsupials, but they were all orphaned when motor vehicle accidents claimed the lives of their mothers. It's difficult to know their exact ages, but Australia's Wild About Wildlife Rescue Center estimates that Peggy the Wombat and Anzac the Eastern Grey Kangaroo were 3 - 4 months old when they came into care. Cupcake the Swamp Wallaby was about 5 months of age. They are all fed a low lactose milk formula.

Photo credit: Wild About Wildlife

As you can tell from these images, the trio gets along splendidly, and Cupcake the Wallaby is particularly active these days. "When you are looking for her, you don't bother looking on the floor, you look up to see what piece of furniture she is about to launch herself from," reports Wild About Wildlife founder Alistair Brown. The rescue center's intention is to release them to the wild when they are old enough.

Taronga Zoo is celebrating breeding the Zoo’s first Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat in 30 years, unlocking secrets which could also help their critically endangered wild cousins. The female joey, named Turra (meaning shadow or shade from the Aboriginal Kaurna language group) recently emerged from mom Korra’s pouch and is a triumph for the Zoo’s efforts on behalf of the species; until recently they were thought to be completely extinct in New South Wales and have been notoriously difficult to breed in captivity.

After many unfruitful matings since efforts began in 2002, a few new factors were applied that led to success. “We decided this time to leave the male in with the females for the whole year,” said Keeper Samantha Elton. “We took a hands-off approach and also provided them with new soil to let them create their own burrows. Hoping our male, Noojee, would breed this year, we added a healthy dose of competition by placing another male in the den. Apparently wombats favor certain individuals, so compatibility certainly played a role.”

Little is known about the development of Wombat pouch young, however Korra is very relaxed in her environment, often sleeping on her back, giving Taronga Keepers the unique opportunity to monitor and measure the joey.

“This has provided invaluable information. We were very lucky to have been able to check on the joey from when it measured just 6 cm and was still hairless,” Samantha added.

Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat numbers in the wild are in decline with loss of habitat, road deaths, drought, competition for food from introduced species, and, more recently, the debilitating infestation of Sarcoptic Mange. Information gained from zoo breeding programs is crucial in ensuring the survival of this species. 

Photo Credit: Peter Hardin

Read more about conservation efforts for the three species of wombats below the jump.

Back by popular demand, the Brookfield Zoo's Hairy-nosed Wombat joey returns to ZooBorns for a second round of adorable wombatitude. Hairy-nosed Wombats are the smallest and most social of all wombat species. Once found throughout a large range in Southern Australia, today the population has been fragmented into a patchwork by human development. The resulting reduced genetic variation makes the species more suspectible to disease. The Brookfield Zoo has exhibited this species for decades and, in fact, was home to the oldest documented Hairy-Nosed Wombats in the world, Carver, who lived to be 34, and his mother, Vicky, who lived to be 24. See the earlier shots here.

Photo credits: Chicago Zoological Society's Brookfield Zoo

Brookfield Zoo has a new resident out of the pouch and exploring more every day: a male Hairy-nosed Wombat baby (called a joey). Born in the summer of 2010 to mom Kambora, the little fellow developed in the pouch following a gestation period of approximately 21 days. Immediately after birth, the tiny joey crawled into Kambora's pouch, where he slept and nursed for approximately nine months getting all the tasty nutrients he needed for proper development. In 1974, Brookfield Zoo was home to the first Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat born outside of Australia. Since then, there have been 15 successful wombat births at Brookfield Zoo. Currently, Brookfield Zoo is one of only four zoos in North America to exhibit Southern Hairy-nosed Wombats.

Photo and video credits: Brookfield Zoo

An orphaned baby Wombat is receiving round the clock care at Taronga’s Wildlife Hospital. The little female joey, now named ‘Mirrhi’, was rescued from along the Hume Highway where its mother had sadly been struck and killed by a car. Mirrhi now has a new mother, wildlife nurse Amy, who takes her home every night. Photos by Lorinda Taylor.

Photo credits: Lorinda Taylor / Taronga Zoo

More pics below the fold...

Zoo Australia, home of the late great Steve Irwin, has welcomed a bevy of babies this spring* including a Wombat Joey, two Tasmanian Devil pups, and a few Koala joeys. The zoo's head of mammals, Tammy Forge says of the little Devils, "These little guys will play an important role in Tasmanian devil conservation efforts, and will be ambassadors for their species here at Australia Zoo." Below are pictures of the Devils, follow by a shot of the Wombat Joey peeping out from his Mom's backwards facing pouch.  Wombats are designed for digging, so this special pouch keeps baby clean while Mom forages with formidable claws.

Photo Credits: Australia Zoo

Just today (Australia time) the Taronga Zoo unveiled their newest baby wombat. Baby Matari will be hand-reared at the zoo. In the wild, wombat moms are professional diggers and rarely take maternity leave. For this reason they have backwards facing pouches (unlike most other marsupials) to protect their young from flying dirt and rocks.

(Photo credit: ubanmanagerie)