71. POOP! Scat, fecal, guano, duty, crap...

This is without a doubt the shittiest episode to date. POOP!

That's right we are talking about animal poop! But not just any poop; some of the weirdest poop in the animal world. Cubed pooped, covering one's self with your own poop, pooping on your own legs, rolling, eating and being born in poop.  The uses of poop are endless when it comes to the animal world.

Scientific names
Common Wombat: Vombatus ursinus
Northern Hairy-nosed wombat: Lasiorhimus krefftii
Southern Hairy-nosed wombat: Lasiorhinus latifrons
Colorado Potato Beetle: Leptinotarsa decemlineata
Marabou Stork: Leptoptilos crumenifer
Turkey Vulture: Cathartes aura
Dung Beetle: Scarabaeus sacer

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Transcript

This week is very special, because its my birthday therefore I get to talk about something I want to which is poop… I know it’s a very odd thing for one to want to discuss but animal poop is crazy and wonderfully weird and a perfect topic for this show. Now if you at home would like to learn more about any animal topic or a type of animal then please reach out; you can find ways to reach me in the episode description. And please do reach out! Because even though there are a bunch of animals and I just choose whichever ones I want every week, sure I have fun but I want you to have fun as well, so please, please let me know what you want to learn about. 

For today it’s all about poop, shit, crap, guano, dodo, caca, fecal, excurrent, logs, doody, dung, feces, DM, waste, stool, duce, poo, discharge, defecation and of course scat. However you chose to say the word we all do it and we all know what it is. And myself, I’m Deidre by the way, who worked with many different animals over my decade long zookeeping career got to experience the wondrously weird world of poop in all its beautiful shapes, sizes, forms and yes even smells. Some of the best smelling poop in my opinion are horses. Now this is of course excluding those tiny invertebrates I worked with like tarantulas who’s waste just looks like a tiny white chalky smug and hardly has a smell at all. Then again that could just be due to the fact that compared to a tarantula I’m really big so might not be able to experience the true stench that is their order. 

Luckily for you this is a podcast, so you don’t actually get to smell any of the poop or urine we’ll most certainly be discussing, but don’t worry, because in some case I may just describe it and it will be as if you were opening one of those wonderous children’s book with endless scratch and sniff sections for your nose to take in. So without further ado, let’s find the weirdest piece of shit and investigate.

**Wombat: Wombats are weird in their own way; as is everything from Australia. They’re marsupials. That’s weird. They look like a child’s drawing of a generic animal with fur. Something between a miniature fat bear, marmot and dirty koala. I mean, what even is a wombat? They’re even weird when it comes to be a marsupial; they don’t hop around like kangaroos, they have teeth like a rodent and they don’t climb trees like possums or koalas, instead, this weirdo, digs. Marsupials are their own kind of weird but wombats might be one of the weirdest of weird marsupials. Not just because of their choice to live underground but because of their poop.

Most of you might already know this but wombats’ excrement comes out as a cube. More like a spherical cube, but we’ll say cube. WHY? What is going on inside that ass? Technically its not the ass it’s the intestines. Let’s start at the beginning; wombats are herbivores. They eat plants. Which might help explain why they don’t need a lot of water-

Fun Fact: A wombat can go years without drinking any water. But again they’re still getting water from the plants they eat they just don’t need to get a water bottle so to measures how much they guzzle down so to prevent kidney stones.

There are actually three species of wombats; common and two hairy nosed wombats. The difference is where they live and their habitat helps to dictate their diet…well I mean they’re still herbivores. The common wombats live in a more moist environment verse the hairy nosed who are in a dryer habitat. But both poop in cubes. And the secret are their intestines. 

Our poop is hard. I mean solid. I mean it should be. If its not then consult your doctor or dietician. But its in our large intestines and colon where water is absorbed from the poop and into your body. This is where your poop gets firm. In the total process of eating to shitting it takes about 36 hours but really anywhere from 2 to five days depending on individual and the food being eaten. But it only takes about 6 to eight hours for that cookie you shoved in you mouth to make it past the stomach and small intestines meaning the rest of that time its in the large intestines working on for filling its purpose in hopes that one day it will become poo. 

Wombats aren’t like that. They have a slow metabolism. So slow that not only can they go a long time without water but they also don’t have to eat everyday. Where our full digestion process takes about 2 to 5 days theirs can be 2 weeks. But don’t think that means they only poop every two weeks; they aren’t snakes. Because yes they can go a day or two without eating but they don’t unless they have to. They are grazing pretty constantly. And because of that their digestion, although slow, is still pushing out quite a bit of shit. One wombat can release 100 charcoal shaped turds a day. 

But why is it a cube? Well, the why is someone hard to answer. It could be to stack better so to help mark their territory. Or so they don’t roll away. But we don’t know. They’re the only weirdos that poop like this. But recently, as in within the last five years scientist have learned how! And they learned by putting balloons in the intestines of wombats… dead wombats. They didn’t kill them. They were already dead. They were like organ donors. Scientist are evil clowns how murder wombats by shoving balloons up animal’s asses. NO. 

But through this odd way of research, the scientists were able to determine that 1) it in the very last part of their intestines where the firming of poo and shaping accrue and 2) the muscles of how the intensities move are different. 

Think about poop, like your poop. Think of the best looking shit you’ve ever taken. And don’t make it weird we all look at our shit, that’s how you know if you’re healthy. Ours is cylindrical because all sides of our intestines moves as it pushed the food down and because of that we get that wonderous shape we see in the toilet. For wombats, their intestines walls don’t all move. Some are very stretchy while other areas aren’t. Because of this it shapes their poop into the cubes we know of it. 

And that ladies and gentlemen is wombat poop! But there’s more: Scientific names are hard. Like that time you spend thirty minutes on the toilet because you decided that water was only for the fishes, reading scientific names is hard. 

Common Wombat: Vombatus ursinus

Southern Hairy-nosed wombat: Lasiorhinus latifrons

Northern Hairy-nosed wombat: Lasiorhimus krefftii

**Communication- we’re moving on from specifically talking about wombat poop to the fact that many animals, including the wombat will use their poop to communicate. Imagine that instead of have a Ring door bell with a camera, or a Beware of dog sign to keep back thieves you instead went Old Testament style and smeared shit on your front door. (of course, in the Old Testament it was sheep blood to keep back the shadow people from murdering your first-born child but its almost just as disturbing as the scene I just described). 

Many animals, like wombats, use their poop to say something. Weather its rhinos getting the latest gossip from sniffing a fresh pile of their girlfriend’s shit, burrowing owls telling bugs to come near, only to eat them or even your dog. Hell its not just poop that’s a form of communication its also urine. Male giraffes will taste female’s urine to see if she’s ovulating. Rats will leave behind didn’t chemical scents in their piss to warm other rats if there’s danger or if its safe. And again even you dog will pee on every thing and anything that smells like another dog, just to mark their territory. 

One such animal, a small tiny thing with zebra stripe down its back and black spots over its orange head has a very unusual way to keep from getting eaten. Allow me to introduce the potato beetle. Specifically the Colorado potato beetle, who, as you can guess is native to the state of Colorado in the United States but have spread to other parts of America and even Europe and Asia. Possibly due to one very odd behavior that their larvae do.

Hey there parents at home; have you even wondered why your new born infant has just spread and covered their entire body with their own excrement? Well perhaps your baby is nervous. Perhaps they sense predators lurking nearby. If so, don’t be afraid as you new born has fallen under the teachings of the Colorado potato beetle. And you can too. Originally reserved for beetle larvae your baby too can protect itself from predators with this easy to follow and free to produce product; Beetle poop lotion. Keeping infants and larvae alive for centuries: at least.

 That’s right the larvae of this cute beetle stays alive by smelling like its own shit! And obviously its be doing the job. Now I do not advise you to do this yourself as we humans don’t have giant predators to fool, but if you do choose to smear some shit on your screen door, that’s entirely up to you and the design you’re going for in your home.

**Poop has many wonderful uses; tricking predators, sending a message, making room so that you can continue to eat more. It’s a wonder we don’t talk more about poop and the miracle that it is. But there are other uses. There are a number of bird species that utilize their waste, and I’m including uric acid in this as for birds they don’t have a poo and a pee hole, they simply have one hole. The hole of wonder! The cloaca! So when they go to the bathroom its all coming out as one. 

Before we get into the details of these birds and their weirdly wonderful excretion tales let’s take a moment to learn about bird poop. ^Time to Learn!^ When we hear bird poop, we think of that white splosh. But technically that white part is more like their urine and its not urine its: nitrogenous waste! Or uric acid that comes out as that white paste. But if you in that white dropping, and you can bet you ass I have looked very closely at LOTs of dropping, including birds, you will find that its not just white. In the, somewhat, middle of that white splosh is a blackish/brown grainy wet mess. That’s is the poop. 

Fun Fact: The reason why bird poop is white is because, for flighted birds, they fly. Meaning they don’t want any extra weight keeping them on the ground. So their body simply doesn’t hold as much water as we do. Think about your pee; most of it is water (depending on how yellow it is). That’s also why you see birds take a shit being taking flight; they’re lighting the load.  

Just because bird poop don’t hold as much liquid as human’s doesn’t mean that its dry. I mean we have all been a victim of a drive by bird pooping before. Whether that’s on your car, your drive way, or if you’ve even used your fast reflexes and caught bird poop straight out of the air…that might just be me. (I’m not crazy or gross, its not like it was some random bird. I was at the news studio for the zoo with a bird and I didn’t want the bird poop to ruin their carpet…so I caught it. You can’t tell me that’s not skill.)

Anyways, we’re all familiar with the texture of bird poop, its wet. And things that are wet dries up. Scientifically speaking that’s called evaporation. True. What’s also true is the fact that there are species of birds: We’ll talk about two different types of birds: storks and vultures. Why? Some of you might be ahead of me on this. These two birds are known for defecating on their legs. Some of you might have done this as a child, forgetting out bladders and toilets work, or from laughing too hard or even getting the piss scared out of you. But these birds are voluntarily peeing on their legs. Why? Let us take a quick sit trip back to Australia to learn about kangaroos. Trust me this is related. 

Australia is hot and warm place. Too hot from some. Summers can be excruciating. Most people go inside with air conditioning to keep cool, while small critters will burrow under ground but not the kangaroo. When they get hot they simply lick their forearms. Then as the air around then heats up it evaporates the water from their arms thereby cooling the arms of the kangaroo including the blood in the veins of those arms and that cool blood then circulates helping to cool the kangaroo.

With this story of the kangaroo saliva covered arms I’m hoping you can sort out why storks and vultures piss on their legs. But how does evaporation of the kangaroo’s saliva or evaporation of those bird’s pee cool them? Well, it works the same way your sweat does. When you work out your body is creating heat, your body naturally response by wanting to cool you down therefore you sweat. Birds and kangaroos don’t sweat, which is why they have these weird and gross alternatives. But how does it all work?

When you sweat, or a kangaroo licks it forearms or a stork pisses on it legs; the warm air around that now wet area will evaporate some of the liquid and when it does it will take some of hot temperature from you body, the kangaroo’s forearm or stork’s leg with. When that liquid leave and takes some of the warmer temperate that’s what’s causing the cooling. So as gross as it is for a bird to piss/poop on their legs, there’s a good reason for it.

Fun fact: There is actually a term for when storks and vultures pee on their legs to keep themselves down: urohydrosis.

Um I think you’ve forgotten scientific names. Shit! I was hoping you did too.

Scientific names are Hard: 

Colorado Potato Beetle: Leptinotarsa decemlineata

Marabou Stork: Leptoptilos crumenifer

Turkey Vulture: Cathartes aura

**There are so many uses for poop! As we’ve learned. But there is one animal who is the ultimate champion when it comes to their many uses of poo. The dung beetle! 

Fun Fact: Normally when people think of dung beetles they think of the one from Africa but there are in fact, over 6,000 species in the world. 

Dung beetles are found everywhere! Except Antarctica, its just too damn cold. Just in North American alone there are around 75 species. And as many of us know dung beetles are those little dudes that collect poop. 

Fun Fact: If you’re up to date on your Ancient Egyptian facts or have been watching Marvel’s Moon Knight, then you are familiar with an ancient dung beetle: the scarab.

Double fun fact: The word scarab comes from their family name (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species). And that family name is Scarabaeidae.

And since we’re already on the point let’s just get this out of the way: Scientific names are hard.

Dung Beetle: Scarabaeus sacer

But with so many dung beetles in the world why in the hell would that many animals want poop and what do they do with it?! Most of our relation of shit is attempting to get rid of it! And if you had some bad meat in the burrito then you’ll be trying a little faster then normal. 

For those of you not aware of what a dung beetle is just imagine a beetle that happens to be pushing around a ball of shit. And usually they’re doing this in a handstand. They’ve got some very powerful legs; after all they can move a ball of shit that’s up to 50 times their weight. 

Now with the imagine of this shit-tacular animal in your mind let’s find out why poop? Don’t they produce enough poop why would they want more? Who would ever want more poop? Well, for the African beetles where it can get hot and dry, poop is sometimes their own means for survival. Think about when we talked about those storks and vultures pooping on their legs. There’s moisture in that. Even the wombats who can live in drying areas will have some moisture in their fecal. The larger mammal in Africa, like cows and elephants produce a lot and I mean a lot of poop.  A full-grown male adult elephant can drop up to 300 lbs of poop a day. That’s a lot of shit. And not all elephants nor beetles live in just the drier area, I should point out, but for those that do that’s when that poop becomes even more important because of the moister that’s inside of it. 

Wait! Are you telling me that dung beetles get this water from…shit? Technically it’s the water being stored in the shit but yes, in a sense, they are just drinking poo juice. That’s gross. Yes it is. But that’s not all. Allow me to share with you the day in the life of an African dung beetle.

Elephants spend all day walking around just eating and shitting whatever and wherever they want. And when they drop their droppings they just remain there, as they don’t have a underpaid zookeeper to clean it up for them. But as the sun begins to set dinner is served. With their wings, because yes, these dung beetles have wings and unlike the terrifying ostrich and cassowary can fly. 

Once that sun begins to set the beetles head out, sometimes flying miles in search for the perfect dung. But how does a small tiny beetle with four tiny eyes spot its food. I’ll give you a hint; its not the eyes that are finding the poop, its their sense of smell. 

Fun Fact: It is thought that dung beetles will use their eyes to help navigate via the constellations. Just like sailors did. They probably smell just as nasty. 

To smell, like other insects, beetles will use their antennae what that are equip with small hair like receptors for collecting orders. And the stinkier the better. And usually, the fresher the stinkier. After having found that amazingly stinky poop the beetles flutter down and begin to create a ball-

-Actually, this isn’t fully accurate. Hi Nerd I’m Ashely and its now time for actually actual facts with me Ashely. Let’s start by saying that this is not actually the only way dung beetles get scat nor is it actually the only reason. Look, there are actually over 6,000 species of dung beetles in the world and more then 2,000 that live in Africa, and when you have that many various from a family then you can’t expect them all the behave the except same. Like I am nothing like my cousin Vivian, who married a slut. These little beetles actually collect fecal in many different ways. Like sure, there is obviously the ones everyone knows who roll a ball of fecal but they all don’t actually roll it for the same reason, let alone one reason. Some will eat from it, others lay their eggs in it, and actually some will roll it to their burrow to help construct their tunnel. Aside form the rollers and tunnellers there’s also like dwellers and stealers. And these dung beetles are actually categorized based on how they dispose of the fecal. And you just thought all these beetles simply rolled fecal around when actually its much more complicated then that. Animals aren’t that simple. Pick up a book sometime and do your own research. This is has been actually actual facts with me Ashely. Bye. 

-Yay, I might have been focusing a bit too much on the roller dung beetles. But that’s the one people love! There’s a reason why No Way Home broke box office records and The Batman (as sexy as Robert Pattinson is as Bruce Wayne), didn’t. The people know what they want. And the people want the shit rolling African Dung Beetle.  

And yeah, they collect that poop to eat and sometimes even lay their eggs in its so that when they hatch its almost like they’re a little baby chick inside that egg feeding on their yolk until they get big and strong. And there are actually some beetles that will continue to live inside that pile of poo even after they grow big and strong and then will lay their eggs in that poo right next to them. These type of dung beetles don’t even roll the poo they just climb on in and get comfy. Another species will steal those nicely rolled poo balls from the beetles who roll them so to lay their eggs inside.

What a way to come into this world. Think about it. These baby dung beetles get laid inside shit. And its not like its their own shit or even their parents shit, which might make it all a bit better, but no, they full on enter into this world born in the soft, warm stretch of someone else’s shit. 

As nasty as this is to imagine (ya. Thanks for that), these nasty poop-born, eating beetles are very, very important to the ecosystem. And its more then the fact that they clean up other animals’ poop. By moving and relocating those dropping it allows for plants to grow more successfully otherwise they could be choked out. Just like if you leave a kiddy pool on the grass for too long and the grass underneath eventually dies, that’s what would be happening if not for the beetles. We also know that poop is manure, fertilization. So by spreading/moving other animals’ poop around and some get scattered here and there it’s just more nutrients for those plants to grow. And if most of that poop didn’t get eating or picked up by dung beetles then that would attract more parasites and thereby spread disease and infections. And remember dung beetles aren’t just in Africa! They are everywhere, on every continent (with the exception of Antarctica) meaning there are dung beetles right in your backyard who are doing Mother Nature’s work in helping to keep you and this plant alive and healthy. This is why I love poop! And why poop is so important and why, of all things I wanted to talk about on for my birthday week, was poop! 

So the next time you drop the kids off at the pool or take the Browns to the Superbowl take a second before you flush to appreciate all the amazingly fascinating and weird ways animal use poop, whether that be their own or others, to help make this wonderfully weird world the amazing working machine that it is. (flush noise) Stay weird.