Did you know that, unlike humans, a lot of animals don't treat their poop as a waste product and actually use it to their advantage?
1. Hippos.
Hippos use their poop like cologne.
They fire it out and use the swishing motion of their tails to spray the poop out over a larger area.
They do this for various reasons, the first is to mark their territory both in the water and out, spreading the aroma as far and as wide as they can, the second reason is to attract a mate. Females, in general, will defecate close to a male to attract their attention or as a sign of affection.
2. Wombats
Wombats use their poop to mark their territory and to communicate with other wombats.
They place their poop on rocks and logs and stack it as high up as possible creating a series of poop towers to show others that this territory is occupied.
Unfortunately, poop is generally cylindrical and has a tendency to roll away, so Wombats have actually evolved a colon that compresses and sections their poop into 2cm cubes that can be easily stacked on top of a rock for all to see.
3. Penguins.
Penguins have rocket poop! Yep, they literally fire out their waste.
Penguins shoot out their poop in order to keep their feathers and the area around their nests clean when incubating their eggs.
While this practice may be great for keeping their own nest clean, it sometimes isn't so good for their neighbors.
In fact, some Emperor Penguins actually poop so much that they've created a giant brown skid mark on Antarctica that can be seen from space!
4. Vultures.
Did you know that Vultures use their poop to cool themselves down?
Vultures are covered in feathers, so when the sun comes out, they get pretty warm!
Unfortunately, Vultures can't actually sweat so they've had to find other ways to cool down, one of which is to poop on their feet.
As the moisture in the poop evaporates, it draws away the heat from their feet and cools the bird down.
5. Sloths.
Sloths don't just stay up in the trees because they are slow and lazy, it is also the place where they're safest.
But, oddly enough, in order to poop, they do have to descend to the ground.
Once on the ground, they stand on their hind legs, hugging the tree trunk, and begin the long process of defecation, because the process takes so long and it leaves them so vulnerable, sloths only poop about once a week, however, storing up their waste for so long means that when they do finally poop they can lose up to one-third of their body weight,
6. Humans.
We humans don't use our poop to our advantage, in fact, our own individual laziness has actually made the whole pooping process a lot more complicated and absurdly wasteful!
First, we had to build special seats with holes in them, then special waste pipes to channel the poop out of our homes, then special paper to wipe up the mess, and then other pipes to bring in water to enable us to flush all that waste down the waste pipes,
Then, because our poop can't just go into the rivers because it would cause massive algae growth and form toxic compounds, it has to go into a treatment plant.
Here it undergoes various complicated processes that basically separate it from the water and dry it out.
Then, the wastewater is treated and goes back into the rivers and the dried-out poop is loaded into trucks and transported.
Although some of this waste does actually go on to be used as fertilizer, the majority of it is buried in landfills...
Honestly!
We should just dig a hole!
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