The crapper.
John.
Dunny.
Latrine.
Loo.
Porcelain throne.
Potty.
There are more than one hundred words for toilet, but did you know that more people
have cellphones than a place to go poo?
Hey there science fans!
Dr. Kiki from This Week in Science here for DNews.
A study in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS One this week investigated the sanitation
habits of Lasius niger, otherwise called black garden ants.
On observing colonies of the ants in the laboratory, the researchers noticed what looked like dark
patches in the corners.
To see whether the patches were indoor lavatories, they fed the ants colored food.
The result is hard to deny… the ants dedicate special areas within their homes for defecation.
But, why would ants use a toilet when the whole world could be their bathroom?
Humans and other animals tend to separate the places where they eat and socialize from
the places where they defecate.
The reason for this is thought to be mainly for sanitation.
Excrement, feces, what you might call poop, has the potential to harbor pathogenic bacteria
and parasites.
Human feces is known to contain E. coli, which causes disease.
Highly populated areas with poor or no sanitation often suffer from devastating water-borne
diseases because people live too close to waterways, and excrement gets into the drinking
water supply.
So, good health and survival depend on the drive to not poop where you eat.
Social insects, like ants, have been observed in many studies removing waste materials from
their nests.
And, like humans, it’s thought to keep things clean, and provide for the health of the colony.
Honey bees take their defecation outside, and like to poop as they fly.
Bee larvae don’t actually poop until they take their first flight, letting the waste
build up inside of them until they become adult bees and are old enough to venture outside
alone.
Adult cockroaches collect poop from their nests and dump it outside.
But, there are wood-boring beetles who just fill old, unused tunnels with their bodily
refuse.
In this study the ants continued to remove other solid waste to the outside, adding strength
to the conclusion that these patches were actually toilets.
However, the ants did not seem to avoid the toilet area, so the researchers wondered whether
the indoor toilets might serve some additional beneficial purpose, like providing healthful
bacteria to young ants.
Leaf-cutter ants fertilize their gardens with their poop.
Termites use their fecal matter to build their homes.
And, some ants use poo to not only mark their territories, but also identify themselves
as part of the group by wiping it on walls and themselves.
Then there are insects like the dung beetle who need the poop from herbivorous and omnivorous
animals to survive.
They are attracted to and collect the poop from large creatures for use as food and a
place to raise their young.
Although, at least one species lays its eggs on the mother’s own poop.
If you are wondering after all this talk about poop, whether insects like ants pee, the answer
is that they do a little of both every time they defecate.
What we think of as pee, is our body’s way to get rid of excess water, salts, and urea,
which is liquid nitrogen waste.
Insects don’t have a lot of excess water remaining from their metabolic functions to
excrete, and tend to produce an insoluble solid called uric acid that gets mixed into
the digestive waste via the Malphigian tubules and pooped out the anus as a substance called
frass.
It’s not really known whether by not making liquid pee insects are conserving water, or
if turning it into a solid helps with weight regulation since a water containing bladder
would be big and heavy to carry around.
And, if you want to know about the weirdest not pee out there, woodlice, which are not
insects but crustaceans, get rid of excess nitrogen in a puff of ammonia gas through
their exoskeleton.
Anything else you wanna know about insect bathroom habits?