[3] 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 [51 cm] 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.

[5] The spelling went through many variants over the years, including "wambat", "whombat", "womat", "wombach", and "womback", possibly reflecting dialectal differences in the Darug language.

The largest known wombat, Phascolonus, which went extinct approximately 40,000 years ago,[7] is estimated to have had a body mass of up to 360 kilograms (790 lb).

[8] Wombats dig extensive burrow systems with their rodent-like front teeth and powerful claws.

[11][12] In 2019 the production of cube-shaped wombat feces was the subject of the Ig Nobel Prize for Physics, won by Patricia Yang and David Hu.

[19] Female wombats give birth to a single young after a gestation period of roughly 20–30 days, which varies between species.

[28][29][30] Wombats have an extraordinarily slow metabolism, taking around 8 to 14 days to complete digestion, which aids their survival in arid conditions.

This, combined with its lack of a meaningful tail, makes it difficult for any predator that follows the wombat into its tunnel to bite and injure its target.

[35] Depictions of the animals in rock art are exceptionally rare, though examples estimated to be up to 4,000 years old have been discovered in Wollemi National Park.

The mainland stories tell of the wombat as originating from a person named Warreen whose head had been flattened by a stone and tail amputated as punishment for selfishness.

In contrast, the Tasmanian aboriginal story first recorded in 1830 tells of the wombat (known as the drogedy or publedina) the great spirit Moihernee had asked hunters to leave alone.

[39] Estimates of wombat distribution prior to European settlement are that numbers of all three surviving species were prolific and that they covered a range more than ten times greater than that of today.

[40] Matthew Flinders, who was travelling on board the Francis on its third and final salvage trip, also decided to take a wombat specimen from the island to Port Jackson.

Governor John Hunter later sent the animal's corpse to Joseph Banks at the Literary and Philosophical Society[41] to verify that it was a new species.

Startled wombats can also charge humans and bowl them over,[45] with the attendant risks of broken bones from the fall.

One naturalist, Harry Frauca, once received a bite 2 cm (0.8 in) deep into the flesh of his leg—through a rubber boot, trousers and thick woollen socks.

[46] A UK newspaper, The Independent, reported that on 6 April 2010, a 59-year-old man from rural Victoria state was mauled by a wombat (thought to have been angered by mange),[47] causing a number of cuts and bite marks requiring hospital treatment.

Examples are Mr. Walter Wombat from the adventures of Blinky Bill and one of the main antagonists in The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay.

[54] The biggest threats the species faces are its small population size, predation by wild dogs, competition for food because of overgrazing by cattle and sheep, and disease.

[54] The only known wild populations of this species exist in two locations in Queensland, the Epping Forest National Park, and a smaller colony being established by translocating wombats to the Richard Underwood Nature Refuge at Yarran Downs.

[54][59] Opportunistic research studies have been conducted on the immune system of common wombats, which could be used as a tool for future conservation efforts.

[64][65] More recently, the citizen science project has published findings on wombat roadkill[66] and sarcoptic mange incidence[67] across Australia.