Telling someone to eat poop is obviously an insult.
But in these species, if they could talk,
they would probably say,
Oh, do you have any? [♪♪♪]
These animals are nature's
best poop eaters. [male announcer] Father is
certainly enjoying his [bleep], so is Carole.
He emptied that [bleep] bottle as fast as he could.
Gobble down the [bleep]. A couple of big spoonfuls,
one right after the other. [♪♪♪]
Hi, I'm Danielle Dufault, and you're watching
Animalogic: Second Nature.When you think of poop,
you're probably not thinking, Mmm, that might be tasty.
Bad taste. Good taste.
Yet surprisingly, poop contains a lot of nutritional value
and many species rely on it as a core component of their diet.
Coprophagia, or consuming feces,
is a great way for animals to reabsorb nutrients,
get nutrients seldom found in their environments,
and in some cases, a way of acquiring
the right gut bacteria to help them break down
hard to digest food. Feces are also a great
source of vitamin B and K, which are secreted
by good bacteria. ♪ I'm through with
fresh fruit juices ♪ ♪ I'd give up carrots too ♪
♪ I don't need doctor who's it, I need vitamin poop ♪
All of these species are incredibly important
to the health of the environment.
They do the jobs that nobody else wants to do.
Well, except fungi. Of course, there are
some negative consequences to eating feces.
With the transmission of parasites
being the most common one.
The most f amous poop eaters
are the ones that adorably roll it around in balls.
The dung beetles. of dung beetle
found all over the world. These beetles are amazing
at finding poop. Using advanced chemoreception,
within 15 minutes of an elephant making droppings,
thousands of dung beetles will arrive on the scene.
Once on-site, they're incredibly efficient.
A group of a few thousand beetles
can clear a three pound load of elephant poop
in just two hours.
They use their little legs to grab a chunk of poop,
shape it into a ball and then they roll it off.
Even cuter is that they roll the balls backwards.
Their hind legs push the ball while they walk standing
on their front legs. In most species,
dung makes up the majority of their diet,but they use it for more
than just feeding themselves. They
also rely on poop for reproduction.
Dad? Yes?
Where do babies come from anyhow?
[♪♪♪] [Danielle]
Several species of dung beetle
lay their eggs in the dung balls and bury them.
This gives their larvae a first meal when they are born.
This is called mass provisioning.
A female dung beetle may only lay about five eggs
in her entire life, so she needs to work extra hard
to give her babies the best chance of survival.
So she will lay only one egg per dung ball.
Competition for dung is fierce.
Albeit cute, rolling balls away from dump sites
is dangerous work. Often rival beetles will try
to steal a dung ball by use of force
and lay their own eggs in it. Then it becomes a race
against time for the larvae to hatch.
The first to hatch gets to live...
and eat poop. Dung beetles are very
important to the environment. They bury their collected poop
which helps replenish nutrients in the soil.
They also remove parasites like intestinal worms in cows
by eating their larvae that are living in the dung.
Dung flies are another key coprophagia species.
They don't exclusively rely on dung to survive,
but they do use it as a hook-up spot.
Ma les will usually hang around
near fresh piles of poop waiting for females to show up
so they can mate with them. After which, like dung beetles,
they will lay their eggs in the freshest available poop.
But insects aren't the only poop
specialists in the world. In the ocean, coprophagia is rather common.
Mollusks, shrimps, fish, and many other species
all eat feces. This is particularly commo
n among bottom dwellers where organic matter
is scarce and feces pellets accumulate
in the form of marine snow. Feces have never been
so beautiful. In the mammalian world,
rabbits and other members of the leporidae family
are the kings of coprophagia. Then he saw something that would
finish his meal just right. Fresh green [bleep], delicious.
They're cecotropes, and fermented poop is an
important part of their diet. They rely on feces
as part of their diet because they have a design flaw.Like us,
their meals pass through their small intestine first.
This is where all the nutrients are absorbed.
But the large intestine contains a pouch called the caecum,
which holds the good bacte ria
they need to ferment the plant matter in order to make it nutritious.
To get the most nutrition out of their food,
they need to eat it,
have it go to the large intestine to ferment, hoop it,
and then eat it again to absorb the nutrients.
These soft feces are rich in vitamins and microbial proteins.
They will continue this process until the droppings
have lost all nutrition and are hard rather than soft.
It's a rather unpleasant process to witness
as the rabbits will often eat the droppings
straight from the source. But without eating
their soft serve, rabbits become malnourished.
So if you own a rabbit, like Marie Antoinette
supposedly said, Let them eat poop!
This behaviour is also seen in many other small mammals
including sportive lemurs, common ring-tailed possums,
mountain beavers, and the coypu. Many larger animals
like rhinos, elephants, pandas, and koalas are also coprophagias.
The practice is especially common in babies
who need to eat their mom's droppings
in order to acquire the gut bacteria
necessary to break down plant matter.
The other reason they eat poop is that it gives them a second
chance to digest plant matter. All of these species
eat very fibrous foods that take longer to digest
than it takes for them to pass through their system,
and so eating their own feces is a great way to get another shot
at digesting the plant matter. This practice is also seen
in many birds. Cassowary chicks in particular
are known to rummage through their parents' poop
in order to find seeds that they can then ingest.
Poop, on e animal's trash
is another's favourite meal. So what should I
talk about next? Please let me know
in the comments, and be sure to subscribe
for new episodes of Animalogic: Second Nature
every other week. Thanks for watching.
Poop, poop, poop, poop. Eat poop, poop,
poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop,
poo, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop,
poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop,
poop, poop, poop! Poop, poop!
I'm saying this too many times. [man] It used to be all shit.
Poop-iddy-poop, poop, poop, poop.
Are you laughing yet?
[man] Yes. [♪♪♪]