Wombat - Name

Name

The name wombat comes from the now nearly extinct Darug language spoken by the Aboriginal Darug people who originally inhabited the Sydney area. It was first recorded in January 1798 when John Price and James Wilson, a white man who had adopted Aboriginal ways, visited the area of what is now Bargo, New South Wales. Price wrote: "We saw several sorts of dung of different animals, one of which Wilson called a Whom-batt, which is an animal about 20 inches high, with short legs and a thick body with a large head, round ears, and very small eyes; is very fat, and has much the appearance of a badger." Wombats were often called badgers by early settlers because of their size and habit. Because of this, localities such as Badger Creek, Victoria and Badger Corner, Tasmania were named after the wombat. The spelling went through many variants over the years including "wambat", "whombat", "womat", "wombach" and "womback", possibly reflecting dialectal differences in the Darug language.