Horsup works in northern hairy nosed wombat conservation, which at the time involved holding a piece of wombat excrement between his index finger and thumb.

BBC: Protecting a wombat species that is as fast as Usain Bolt

The Northern hairy nosed wombat is the largest of all the three species, weighing up to 40kg and measuring about 1m long (the females are slightly heavier than the males).

BBC: Protecting a wombat species that is as fast as Usain Bolt

There are two other species of wombat, the common (or bare-nosed) wombat, which is not endangered and is found on the southeastern coast of Australia (in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania) and the southern hairy nosed wombat, which is endangered and is found in arid, sandy pockets in the southern part of Australia (in South Australia and Western Australia).

BBC: Protecting a wombat species that is as fast as Usain Bolt

Monique Paris of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, has been working with the common wombat, trying to understand its reproductive cycles as a prelude to tackling the rarer northern hairy-nosed variety, of which only 100 or so survive.

ECONOMIST: Endangered species