10 Cool Facts About Animal Poop

Have you ever wondered about animal poop? Well, these are 10 cool facts for you!

1. Did you know some animals that eat insects actually look through poop to find insects to eat? Some types of monkeys and birds do this, for example.

2. Picture an ant, and it’s eating bird poop. Little does it know that there is a parasite that makes the ant’s head look like a berry! Of course, a bird thinks it is a berry — and eats the ant! Then, the parasite starts laying eggs in the bird’s dropping, and it starts all over again!

3. Did you know lots of mammal herbivores actually eat their parents’ poop? These include koalas, pandas, elephants, rats, mice and rhinos! When these animals are babies, they don’t have the bacteria they need in their stomachs to digest the food, so they eat their parents’ poop. (Luckily, their parents have the right bacteria!)

4. Vultures eat rotten flesh, right? So, it must be very dirty! They found a way around that. To keep their feet clean after eating rotten flesh, they poop on their feet.  Their poop has the bacteria to kill all the rotten flesh germs.

5. What does coffee have to do with poop? I’ll tell you what! The most expensive coffee is made from beans that are collected from a palm civet’s poop! It’s called kopi luwak. (So, think about it next time you drink that kind of coffee!)

6. There are two types of caterpillars that disguise themselves as poop: the viceroy and the white admiral. A spider named the dung spider got its name from the same thing.

7. Did you know there is a type of fish called the tambaqui fish that actually eats seeds and, with its poop, plants the seed? It can travel a tree seed for more than 3 miles!

8. I’ve noticed that, when I pick up my pet rats, they poop everywhere. This is because, when they’re preyed on in the wild, they have a strong fight-or-flight response that can happen when humans touch them, too. They poop as a defense mechanism.

9. Sloths normally spend all their time in trees, and you’d think that, when they have to go poop, it’d just go straight down. Nope! Every week, the sloth goes down from the tree and poops.

10. There is a type of facial (a skin treatment for your face) that uses poop from nightingales! The company who makes it says it will make you look younger!

Bonus Fact! Did you know there is a bird called the double-banded courser that lives in Africa, and it disguises its eggs as poop?

Learn more facts about animal poop by getting the book Get the Scoop on Animal Poop by Dawn Cusick. This is where I got all the facts.

Image from http://alaskahermit.com/product/moose-poop/