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  • Dung, doo doo, droppings, crap, scat.

  • Whatever you want to call it.

  • Poop is pretty useful.

  • Hey everyone, Julia here for DNews.

  • While we tend to think of excrement as extremely gross and want to get it as far away from us as possible, nature has a different way of dealing with doo doo.

  • In a closed ecosystem,nothing goes to waste. Not even waste.

  • For some animals it’s normal and healthy to eat their own poop, which is called coprophagy.

  • Mice and capybaras eat their own waste to get some nutrient that passed through their body once that have missed for the first time.

  • And farmers know the importance of waste in raising their crops.

  • but feces aren’t just for fertilizing.

  • According to some research millions of tons of dung enters Africa’s aquatic ecosystems every year.

  • Some researchers think high concentrations of excrement leads to fish die offs.

  • But new research suggests it might be good for the fish!

  • A recent study published in the journal Ecosphere found that hippo poop feeds river fish.

  • Researchers from the UC Santa Barbara used chemical markers to follow the trail from beneath the hippos tail to the tissue of fish in the river.

  • The research showed that the fish were getting important nutrients from the poo.

  • This was especially true when water levels were low.

  • Then the hippo poo was more concentrated and the fish could make better use of the nutrients.

  • The research confirms that hippos can have a huge impact on the ecosystem.

  • Some scat helps to spread seeds. Lots of birds eat seeds then drop them off in some distant wood.

  • This helps spread the species further than it normally would.

  • One study published in the journal Ecology Letters found that passing through the gut of a sky bird changes the seeds for the better.

  • A small tropical bird, Elaenias, feeds on the seeds of a wild chili pepper plant.

  • After going through the bowels of the bird, the seeds chances of survival increase 370 percent!

  • The researchers found that being eaten and then passed made the seed less aromatic and appealing to seed-eating ants and it removed some of the harmful pathogens that could kill the seed.

  • Fish feces even builds beaches! You know how beautiful those pristine white beaches in Hawaii are?

  • Yeah. That’s fish poop. Seriously. Parrot fish, so named because they have sharp,beak-like teeth, naw off algae that grows on corals. Along with the algae, the fish gets a mouthful of the coral’s calcium carbonate, which it expels as waste.

  • Some estimates say that a single parrot fish can poop out 800 pounds of sand a year!

  • Thatll be fun to think about on your next vacation.

  • And don’t think humans are immune to this.

  • I mean we love our fertilizer.

  • Cat poop coffee exists.

  • In the Sumatran Jungle lives a small-cat like critter called the civet.

  • This cat loves coffee berries, but its gut doesn’t digest the bean.

  • Tthe cat passes the bean, its anal glands release a musky scent onto the bean.

  • And this makes for apparently good, well.. at least expensive coffee.

  • It can cost as much as 600 bucks a pound!

  • I… I uh.. I think I’ll stick to my cup of Earl Grey.

  • Speaking of all the good things poop can do, human fecal transplants can save lives!

  • Get the scoop on this miracle cure from our sister show Seeker Stories.

  • Check out that video here.

  • Many people with Ryan's condition have turned to an unique procedure known as a fecal transplant which involves taking poops form healthy donner and insert it into a patient's colon to recolonize good bacteria into their system.

  • What do you think about all the great things doo doo can do?

  • Would you drink a cup of crappy coffee in the morning?

  • Let us know in the comments below

Dung, doo doo, droppings, crap, scat.

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