Bottersnikes and Gumbles are fictitious creatures in a series of children's books by Australian writer S. A. Wakefield and illustrator Desmond Digby.
[2] Set in the landscape of the Australian bush the stories recount a series of conflicts between the lazy, destructive Bottersnikes and good-natured, hardworking Gumbles.
Wakefield also worked in some satire of more adult concepts: Gumbles in Summer deals with politics - especially far-fetched promises, election campaigning and vote-winning - through an election held to replace the King of the Bottersnikes when he got killed by food poisoning, while in Gumbles in Trouble, Chank the Bottersnike creates a newspaper, leading to critique of the media and biased reporting.
They eat mattress stuffing (preferably barbecued) and pictures of food out of magazines, and for sweets they like rusty nails and bottle tops.
When the Snikes capture the Gumbles, they stuff them in cans, force them to do dirty work, eat them, or put them in "The Spankler" which makes them stop stretching.