World's oldest captive wombat joins dating service in search of love

You're never too old to start looking for love, even if you're the world's oldest captive wombat.

The Ballarat Wildlife Park in Victoria has signed up its most famous resident, Patrick the wombat, to a dating service in honor of the furry bachelor turning 30 years old this weekend.

Patrick's handlers created the humorous profile on the dating service application, Tinder, with the aim of finding the cuddly critter a mate.

"The male wombat has to be very aggressive towards the female, and Patrick just isn't a very aggressive wombat," park owner Julia Leonard told the Australian Broadcast Corporation on Tuesday.

"So he chooses to be single."

Leonard said Patrick had already well exceeded his predicted lifespan, so it was time for him to find a mate to retire with.

"On average (wombats) probably only live 15 or 20 years in captivity, in the wild much less, so he's doing very well," she said.

Although Patrick is yet to find the wombat of his dreams, the 38 kilogram Australian wombat still gets his fair share of love from an extremely strong social media fan base.

Last year, a photo of the elderly marsupial attracted around 250,000 likes on social media website Facebook in 24 hours, and has more than 30,000 followers on his page.

Patrick also has his very own website devoted to keeping fans abreast of his ongoing affairs.

He once went on an inadvertent joyride, climbing into his handler's unattended car and accidentally putting the car into gear.

The U.S. television network CNN named Patrick the third greatest city mascot in the world last year. Endi