WEBVTT - Animals That Eat Poop 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:05.520 My welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how 0:00:05.559 --> 0:00:13.960 Stuff Works dot com. Hey, you welcome to Stuff to 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:16.320 Blow your Mind. My name is Robert lamp and I'm 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:18.919 Joe McCormick and Robert. I have just been out on 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:22.760 vacation for a bit and I came back to find you, uh, 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:29.720 absolutely rare and to go about coprophagia. That's right. Uh. 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:33.120 The consumption of poopy, which I figured is is ideal. 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:35.640 You should be listening to this episode during the week 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:39.400 of American Thanksgiving. It's a time when people eat too much, 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:42.120 and they eat a lot of gray and brownish foods 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:45.040 that are too rich. They probably shouldn't be eating all 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:47.559 of this stuff, but they do anyway. So it's a 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:50.239 perfect time to talk about poop eating. Cram down the 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:53.360 gullet with loving care, uh, in the presence of one's 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:56.960 family and and in laws and all that. Now, before 0:00:57.040 --> 0:00:59.600 anybody turns us off, I do want to drive home 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:02.200 that most of what we're gonna be talking about in 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:06.920 this episode, UH relates to animals eating poop. As the 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:10.960 title of the episode implies. At the very end, when 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:14.120 when everyone's ready, we may talk a little bit about humans, 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:16.720 but first we will deal with animals before we deal 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:20.319 with the added complexities of human beings. Now, I'm sure 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:23.839 the listeners out there are wondering the same thing I was. 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:26.600 So I got back from vacation to find you super 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:30.760 excited about animals eating poop, and I was like, well, 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.600 what got you going on this, Robert? Why did you 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:37.039 fling yourself headlong into a pit of coprophagia for the 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:40.480 week of Thanksgiving? Well? I originally had the idea to 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:45.560 do it after watching a David Attenborough narrated special titled 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:47.960 Spy in the Pod, which is fun. It's a fun 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:50.440 little show in which they have a remote control robot 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:54.720 it's hanging out with elephants, and they briefly cover coprophagia 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:58.560 practiced by elephant calves, which we'll get to in this episode. 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:00.559 And I thought, well, that's interesting that a new spin 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:06.040 on something that I'd largely just dismissed as being essentially 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:10.279 an act of both of human defilement but also abnormal 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:14.359 animal behavior. And I thought, well, this sounds like kind 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:16.840 of a grim top kip topic, but certainly thanksgiving us 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:19.960 the time to do it. Um. I think we've talked 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:23.040 about what like poisonous foods and stuff like that. Yeah, 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:24.839 it kind of fits in with what we've done and 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:27.840 were those aren't we Yeah, yeah, it's just running at 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:31.680 least two and three Saturday. Yeah, but but anyway, anyway, 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:33.880 and looking into the topic, then I realized, oh, this 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:36.800 is a fascinating topic. And in the grand tradition of 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:41.840 our episodes on cannibalism, h b clity, and necrophilia, I 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:44.960 think that there's a there's an awesome challenge in tackling 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:49.680 something like this, something that is generally considered very abnormal 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:53.160 behavior for humans, and looking at it from just the 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:57.640 the boiled down, no nonsense, uh animal side of things, 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:00.360 like what is it? How does it make sense within 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:03.880 the realm of animal biology and behavior, and then how 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:06.760 might what might we apply that to the human scenario 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:11.760 even Yeah, the sort of like brute chemical energy realities 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:17.200 and and uh microbiological ecology of the world. In in 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:20.359 that kind of context, poop eating begins to come into 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:24.000 focus as a beautiful thing. Yeah, you know, as I 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.720 discussed in our our Halloween two thousand and eighteen episode 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:30.280 Horror Anthology, Volume one, UM, there's an episode of Night 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:33.040 Gallery in which a character is tricked into believing himself 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:37.640 cursed to an irreversible transformation into a human earthwork, and 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:42.080 it's Leslie Nielsen with an iPad like shooting at walls. Yeah, 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:44.680 the a man with no fear who has eventually overcome 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:47.840 with fear of becoming a worm. And I said that 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:50.440 one of the reasons we find this concept so horrifying 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:54.360 is that it reduces us to our alimentary track. We 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:57.040 fear the worm at the heart of our being, and 0:03:57.040 --> 0:03:58.880 I think that we see that reflected in this episode 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.040 as well, in thing that kind of reduces us to 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:06.160 just our digestive system tends to have an inn aid 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:08.760 horror to us because we're definitely going to be touching 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:11.080 on the microbiome and all of this the importance of 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:15.000 gut bacteria, which continuing research tells us just is far 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.000 more important than than we ever imagined in the past. 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:21.240 I mean, the worm dictates much of our health and 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:24.839 even our mind. Yeah. We might get into this more 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:27.440 as the episode goes on, but it is so fascinating 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:31.280 that we have, uh, such a such a deep disgust 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:35.360 and revulsion for the products of the human digestive system. Yeah, 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:37.200 And it is just it's I mean, a certain amount 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:39.560 of it is is learned for sure. But I think 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:41.200 part of it too is that we're just we're not 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.680 a coprophegic species, so we do not engage in this 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:48.400 uh routinely or is a part of of normal behavior. 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:50.839 I mean really, in the grand scheme of things, we're 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.520 weird for not doing it. While we tend to look 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:55.159 at it the other way. We we if we see 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:57.440 an animal consuming its own poop or the poop of 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:00.120 another creature, we think all of that is grotesque, how 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:03.840 inhuman of this non human creature. Well, just think about 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:08.320 the sensory difference, Like the world must just look and 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:13.080 smell very different. If poop is delicious to you, or 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:16.320 or even without even getting into idea of it's delicious 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:21.160 or not, but if it is, under any circumstances nutritional. Yeah, 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.760 so it really turns things on its head. But let's 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:26.800 talk about some of the reasons, like the basic reasons 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:32.039 that excrement consumption might be desirable for an animal before 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.760 we get into species specific examples. Sure, well, one is 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:39.280 obviously going to be that feces contain nutrients. I mean, 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:40.960 by the time they come out of you, you have 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:44.840 not gotten all the possible nutrition from it. That's right. 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:47.920 Given digestive system does the best it can to break 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:50.280 down the nutrients it needs from a meal, and then 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:53.800 it passes on the rest. But sometimes it can't digest 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:55.960 everything of value in there, and this may require the 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:59.320 creature itself or another scavenger to give all or part 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:02.080 of the excrement a second pass, maybe even a third pass, 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:04.960 who knows. And also you have to consider the different 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:08.760 species require different kinds of nutrients. So what might not 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:10.920 be all that useful to you, or you might possess 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:13.839 an excess in order to excrete in waste might be 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:17.440 something that is very useful to a different organism. Yeah, 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.000 and two other points here too that certainly we'll get 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:23.200 into examples of are that that first of all, you 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:25.599 definitely think of you can think of that poop sometimes 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.680 as a as a first draft. You know, not everything 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:31.160 is finished, not everything has been been harvested. And then 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:35.719 also think about what the human digestive system does. It 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:40.280 takes the energy in the form of plant and or flesh, 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:43.599 and it transforms that into a form that can be 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:47.760 absorbed and digested, and it doesn't all take place like 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:50.200 in your throat. You know, it's it's taking place at 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:54.080 at at various points throughout a given creatures digestive system. 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:57.040 Now that the next big reason, of course, relates to 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:00.640 the microbiome. Yes, and this is huge. It's just sort 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:03.599 of coming into focus, I think in in the past 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:08.800 few decades, how enormously important the microbiome is. How your 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:12.800 gut flora is. It determines a lot about how your 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:15.320 body works and who you are, right and the gut 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:18.920 floor is reflected not only in what's going on inside 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:20.760 of you, but also in what is coming out of you. 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:24.000 So you know, we we don't like to think of 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:26.040 ourselves as a worm, obviously, and we don't like to 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:28.480 think of ourselves as an organism at all. But if 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:29.960 we do, we tend to think of ourselves as a 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:34.560 single organism, splendid, perfect ape. I am an animal, I 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:38.080 am one thing. Yeah, I'm the animal even But of 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:40.760 course there's more to us than all of that. We're 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:45.320 a multi cellular construction of maddening complexity, and we're literally 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:50.600 host to an ecological community of commencial, synthiotic, and pathogenic 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.840 micro organisms. We're learning more and more about the role 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:57.360 that our microbiome plays every day. Certainly but it certainly 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:01.040 plays an important role in digestion, and one microbiome can 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:04.440 make certain diets more advantageous, and when out of balance, 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:07.440 can lead to illness. So, for an extreme example, and 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:09.640 one that I think ties in nicely with today's episode, 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:14.720 just can consider uh, fecal microbiotic transplants f m t s. 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:18.120 This was all over the news and you know, comedians 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:20.080 had a big time with it. Sounds crazy, Yeah, Like 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:24.880 I feel like it certainly sounded crazy years ago, but 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:26.840 less so today. I feel like at this point, everybody's 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.160 kind of like, oh, yeah, that that that makes sense. 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:33.760 They're gonna be situations where the microbiome needs to be restored, 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:39.200 and to do so, a fecal transplant is sometimes the answer. 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:41.800 But what's crazy is this, to a very large extent, 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:44.640 is an example of the modern Is it basically the 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.360 modern medical version of exactly what some animals are doing 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.920 when they consume feces. We just have more elegant uh 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:55.760 and uh, you know, modern delivery system in place. If 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:58.640 you want a more palatable analogy, just think about all 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:02.480 of the commercials for probiotic yogurt and stuff. Yeah, exactly, 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:06.040 this is the probiotic yogurt. Of the animal world. They 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:08.679 can't go and uh and and and buy something at 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:11.160 their local grocery store. Uh. They have a more old 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:15.000 fashioned and effective means of taking care of the scenario. Now, 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:18.800 these cases we've been talking about, our cases where it's 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:22.800 clearly part of an animal's natural life cycle to consume 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:25.920 feces to get something that it needs, whether that is 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:29.560 living microbes or some kind of nutrients. But there are 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:33.920 also probably cases where coprophagia is a sign that something 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:37.680 is wrong, right, I mean, animals and captivity may engage 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:41.120 in coprophagia. Puppy male dogs, for instance, can learn to 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:44.439 confuse dog food with feces due to the horrid conditions 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:48.600 in which they are sometimes raised. Adult elephants may engage 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:52.719 in it due to captivity issues, and certainly, as we 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:54.400 may touch on at the very end of the episode, 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:58.040 humans may engage in such behavior due to dementia. But again, 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:03.320 human coprophagia is is very rare with the animals. I 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:07.360 feel like, once once we take into account the cases 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:09.080 where it makes sense and is a part of their 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:13.319 natural behavior, even the unnatural cases make a little bit 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:15.760 more sense, you know, because with the human if a 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:19.520 human consumes of feces. It is a human doing something 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:22.880 that does not make sense within uh at any other 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:26.960 point in humans life, whereas a dog a puppy, say, 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:30.760 eating feces is is doing something perhaps out of place 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:34.680 or out of in a frequency that doesn't sit well 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:38.439 with their natural behavior, but is not unheard of in 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:41.400 their natural behavior. Well, maybe we should talk about the 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:46.360 idea of coprophasia as a natural behavior of dogs, because 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:51.720 I so I can't speak directly to coprophasia, but I 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:54.880 go out walking my dog and it is clear to me, 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:59.040 based on the directions that the dog pulls, that feces 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:03.680 are incredibly interesting to him. He's very interested in getting 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:07.559 up close to them. I've never let him linger there 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:10.160 with enough time to see what he would do if 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:13.520 the smelling were allowed to evolve into munching. I don't 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:16.959 know if that would happen, but I've often suspected now 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:19.400 there could be other stuff going on there. For one thing, 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.000 I think feces probably a lot of these feces are 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:26.359 dog feces, and they probably contain a lot of interesting 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:29.880 sensory information smell wise, like he can learn about the 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:32.480 other dogs in the area by smelling the poop, I 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:36.280 would assume, I mean probably just food interest. Yeah. I 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:38.920 mean it's worth remembering that dogs live in an entirely 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:42.960 different sense world in regard to smell. Yeah. But but 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:45.520 I also do wonder like, Okay, if I wasn't there 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:48.400 to pull him away, to gently drag him back on 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:51.920 the leash, would he eat these feces? Well? I certainly 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:56.040 no other dog owners who have to deal with, say 0:11:56.040 --> 0:11:59.120 the dog trying to get into get at the cat litter, Yes, 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:03.360 to eat cat feces, yes, for example, And we're we're 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:06.160 about to touch on that as well. Uh. I feel 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:10.440 like this is probably the example of coprophasia that that 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:14.439 our listeners are most well acquainted with um because dogs 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:18.800 are popular pets and they do engage in this kind 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.200 of behavior from time to time. And I mentioned it 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:25.440 can be quite disruptive of the sort of anthropomorphizing we 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:27.320 often do with our pets. Right, we teach them like 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:31.839 we treat them like little fur babies, and if the names, yeah, 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:34.599 and if and even the food we pick out the 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:37.880 artificial uh, I mean the the prepackaged of food that 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:40.640 we purchase for our animals. I mean those are foods 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:44.120 that are marketed to appeal to both dogs but also 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:46.000 to humans, where the humans are like, yeah, that's the 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:47.920 kind of thing that I would eat if I were 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:52.320 a dog. And so the idea then of of of 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:55.520 consuming cat feces is generally kind of repugnant, and we 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:58.480 have to I'm I'm I'm guessing there probably comes a 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:00.800 point in any kind of like dog ownership. I mean, 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:02.800 I feel like there's certainly that point in cat ownership 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:06.000 to where you you really have to to remind yourself, oh, yeah, 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:08.680 this is an animal, and it's and it's living in 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:12.720 a strange environment by hanging out in my house all 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:16.240 or most of the time. But so when coprophigia occurs 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:17.880 in dogs, I guess there are a couple of questions 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:20.960 we could ask. First is how common is it? And 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:24.320 second is why are they doing that? So, first of all, 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.720 it is a minority of dogs that eat poop, but 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:32.000 not a tiny minority. Aeen study in the journal Veterinary 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:35.720 Medicine and Science by Heart at All used a large 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:38.439 survey of dog owners to look at specifically that the 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:42.199 question was about dogs eating dog feces. This study is 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:45.800 not about dogs just eating poop in general. Maybe other animals, 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:49.120 and it found the following. About seventy seven percent of 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:52.800 dog owners had never seen their dog eating poop, about 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:55.840 twenty three percent had seen their dog eating poop at 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:58.920 least once, and about sixteen percent had seen their dog 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:02.199 eating poops six or more times, so about a quarter 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:05.240 try it at least once within view of a human. 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:08.360 Roughly one in six dogs seem to eat poop a lot, 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:11.240 and the lead author on that study was a veterinarian 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:14.720 named Benjamin Hart, who directs the Center for Animal Behavior 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:17.960 You See, Davis. One thing you might notice if you 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:21.280 google like why is my dog eating poop? Is you'll 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:25.960 get websites of self proclaimed dog experts of all kinds offering, uh, 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:30.160 you know, many different answers, and speaking to Karen Bruillard 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:33.360 in an article for The Washington Post, Heart said that 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:35.640 the reason you get all these different answers is that 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:38.560 nobody knows for sure why dogs eat poop, and they're 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:41.880 basically all just guessing. Fortunately, Heart says that this behavior 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:44.680 is gross as it might seem, is not usually dangerous 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:47.800 to the dog's health. But does Heart have an answer 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.560 about why dogs do it in the first place. Well, 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:52.880 not a definitive one, but the authors of the twenty 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:55.240 eight team paper do have a hypothesis and it goes 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:59.080 something like this, So modern dogs are descended from some 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:03.280 ancestral variety of wolf, and wolves don't like poop within 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:06.160 their own den. They they like to go out somewhere 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:09.000 away from the den to do their stuff. And this 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:12.920 is probably an evolved defensive behavior because the feces of 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:17.000 wild wolves often contain the eggs of intestinal parasites like 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:21.880 hookworms or pinworms or cosidia, and there there could be 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:25.600 genes probably selecting for behaviors that would help prevent your 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:28.600 brothers and sisters and other close relatives in the pack 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:34.280 from catching your intestinal parasites. However, maybe sometimes you get 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:36.400 a sick wolf, a sick wolf that's in the pack 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:38.840 and is not able to leave the den in order 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:41.440 to poop. In that case, it would actually make sense 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:44.400 to eat poop within the den as quickly as possible, 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:47.680 since it usually takes a couple of days for parasite 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:51.560 eggs in poop to hatch and become dangerous. So rather 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:54.080 than let the poop in the den just sit there 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:56.880 for a couple of days and become a potential bio hazard. 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:00.160 There could be a selection pressure favoring an impulse in 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:04.840 wolves and their dog descendants to immediately eat fresh poop 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:07.440 within the den before it goes over the edge and 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:11.520 becomes a risk. And this hypothesis is actually consistent with 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:15.520 another thing that researchers have found about dog coprophagia, which 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:17.960 was that in dogs who eat who do eat poop, 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:21.440 more than eight percent prefer poop that is fresh, no 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.480 more than two days old, you know. On the other hand, 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:28.320 James Serpel, a professor of veterinary medicine at U PEN, 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:31.520 was also quoted in that post piece, and Sir Pell 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:35.680 says he finds that the din cleaning hypothesis for coprophagia, 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:37.840 that that could be plausible. That might be the case, 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:41.640 But Sirple also points out that poop eating dogs tended 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:44.560 more often to be rated by their owners as generally 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:48.480 greedy eaters. And that's a quote greedy eaters. So we 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.200 can't rule out the possibility that the cause is simply 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.960 dogs with a strong scavenging instinct and some large and 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:59.200 indiscriminate appetites looking for a bit of extra nutrition. Well, 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:01.600 let's take a quick rake and then when we come back, 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:06.840 we will explore coprophagia among elephants. Thank you, thank you. 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:09.800 All right, we're back, So Robert, it's time to talk 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:15.640 about elephant coprophagia. So obviously, there's nothing cuter than an 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:18.800 elephant calf than a baby elephant. You know. It's just like, 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:20.760 if someone shows me a YouTube video of a baby 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:23.399 elephant doing pretty much anything, I'm gonna watch it. I 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:26.600 don't know, what about a screeching adult possum, Well, that's 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:29.760 fun too. I also really like it when skunks stand 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:32.880 on their their fore legs and wave their their hinders 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:36.440 in the air. I'm pretty much game for any animal video. 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:40.040 But there's something about an elephant calf, you know, it's 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:43.840 just so adorable. I think it has something to do 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:48.680 with the the large head with the kind of wispy hair, 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:51.040 do you know what I'm talking about? The triggers. I 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:55.200 think some of the baby schema instinct like that. The 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:57.679 part of the idea of the baby scheme as that 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:01.040 we are we are triggered with, uh you know, like 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.040 caregiving instincts when we see a creature with a large 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:08.080 forehead and apparently large brain case because it looks kind 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.320 of like the proportions of a human baby and baby elephants. 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:13.640 They strike me as being kind of like that, right, 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:16.360 And then they start eating a little poop, and we're 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:18.240 not sure where we're how we're supposed to feel about 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:21.280 the whole situation. And this is in the wild, mind you, 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:23.359 this is observed in the wild. This is not just 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:26.720 a zoo thing or anything. Um, So it leads us 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:28.600 to ask, you know, what purpose could this serf? Well, 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:32.639 the poop contains vital bacteria for breaking down plant cellulus, 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:36.560 and by consuming some of its mom's dung, an elephant 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:40.879 calf essentially gets that microbiome boost towards the consumption of food. 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:44.400 So it's it's vital in them making that leap from 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:48.480 just just sustaining themselves on their mother's milk to actually 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:53.000 eating as an adult or semi adult elephant. And then 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:54.720 they're also going to get some nourishment out of the 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:57.879 deal as well as roughly two thirds of an elephant's 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:01.960 diet uh ends up coming out the other end undigested. 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:04.880 I guess this would be a diet heavy and rough 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:08.080 plant matter. Oh, yeah, you know it. So they're they're 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:12.040 eating elephants obviously eat a ton they're eating a lot 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:17.160 of plant matter, but even their impressive anatomy is only 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:20.960 able to absorb so much of it. By the way, 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:24.840 speaking of elephant poop, uh, it's pretty incredible as well 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:27.320 due to its a seed distribution. Powers. This was kind 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:30.760 of a tangent I happened upon in my research. You know, 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:33.199 we often forget this about this when we're considering the 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:36.960 ecological impact of elephants and h and also you know 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:39.879 some of the ramvoications of their dwindling numbers. But just 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:44.240 consider the Asian elephant, which has lost its habitat and 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:48.320 ninety percent of its population over the last century. Um. 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:51.120 And these stats come from on the Importance of Elephant 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:56.240 Poop by Sarah Zelinsky, published in Science News. She points 0:19:56.240 --> 0:19:59.879 to a two thousand fifteen ecology publication by a Secca 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.479 at all uh that points to three plant species in 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:07.040 particular that have evolved to benefit from elephant seed distribution, 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:10.399 including the so called elephant apple apple, which I was 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:14.119 not familiar with. Um. Most animals can't actually eat the 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:17.040 elephant apple because it's just so tough, and as with 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:20.320 wild guava, which is another example of this, it's far 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:23.480 more likely to germinate if it passes through an elephant 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:26.160 rather than say a cow or a buffalo. So key. 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:27.840 Key here, of course is the fact that the seed 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:31.080 itself has to be undigested in order to actually germinate 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:32.800 and grow new plants. Yeah, and there of course a 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:36.240 number of plants that depend on distribution methods like this, 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:39.520 like the an animal eats the fruit and then poops 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:43.480 the seeds out somewhere, often helping transport the seeds somewhere 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:46.280 along the way. Yeah, I feel like this is something 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:48.920 this kind of comes back to how humans perceive poop. 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:52.400 We we tend to think again with that that sort 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:54.960 of worm analogy. On one end of the worm is food, 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:57.960 delicious food, and on the other end is just poop, 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:01.600 just utter utter law. It's heaven and hell. You know 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:05.320 it's good and evil. But really, you're and most animals 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:07.560 would be able to attest to this, have the gift 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:10.359 of reason and language that the poop still has a 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:13.040 lot of good in it. It's not just this, uh, 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:16.920 this transformation from like you know, a hundred zero, it's 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:19.480 not heaven in hell. It's more like dinner and leftovers. 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:21.800 And you might find, in fact that the leftovers have 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:25.320 already been conveniently cut up into pieces for you exactly. 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:28.760 I should also point out that this has been a 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:32.280 practice among elephants and elephant can for quite some time. Uh. 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:34.919 There was a forty two thousand year old baby female 0:21:34.960 --> 0:21:38.480 mammoth double lube and she was found to have adult 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:42.000 mammoth poop in her digestive system. This seems to be 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:44.480 just a part of how you first of all, wean 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:49.720 and then also prepare the the the microbiota of the 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:53.960 young elephant calf. Now speaking of similar large mammals with 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:57.080 also very cute babies, I was reading just a little 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:01.520 bit about the importance in the the freshwater food chain 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:05.000 of some rivers of hippo poop. You know, hippo has 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:06.879 to do a similar thing. They come up out of 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:09.320 the water to eat a whole bunch of you know, 0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:11.760 rough plant matter, and then they retreat back into the 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:14.040 water to just poop it all out, poop it all 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:18.160 out straight into the water. Uh. And this this ends 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:21.440 up forming an important nutrition source for fish and other 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:25.479