Oh hi, welcome to smologies.
What are smologies?
Okay?
So these are shorter, kid friendly versions of classic episodes. So we took them and we took all the swears out, nothing too racy. You can listen around kids, you can listen around your grandparents, perhaps, work colleagues, whatever. If you want the full length version of this episode, though, of course, it's going to be linked in the show notes. We also have more ssmologies up at alleywar dot com slash smologies.
Okay, enjoy.
Oh hey, it's your old internet dad here with an episode you've all just been chomping at the bit for.
Will she go there?
You wondered she went there?
Boy?
Howdy ditch she? But don't worry. Okay, this one it doesn't get too gross. I don't know what am I talking about.
It's so gross.
It's an entire episode on animal poo and sometimes ours because we are, after all, animals. But I tried to just keep it as informative and as illuminating as an entire episode on animal excrement can be. Let's just roll up our sleeves and just dive right into it. Scatology it comes from the Greek for feces welcome. Scatology is a scientific study or the chemical analysis of feces, while
coprology is scatology. What okay, So both same. So for this scatology episode, we talk a lot about zoo poofs, and in fact I got a VIP tour in which I saw a freezer that was kind of like a porta potty on Noah's art.
The coolest thing about our labs maybe is our freezers. Yeah, this one might be locked, but you got a loop.
Yeah, we keep our our freezers locked.
So we have black Rhino, Pygmy hippo, red river hog who, we have our some of our octopus stuff in here. We have our Gravey zebra back during camels, our draft or black bear, our Japanese macaque, pygmy Soloris, Diana monkey, it Tamaron polar bear. That's just what lives in this freezer. Now I have thirteen others. We're gonna go all around the zoom. We're gonna go.
Through this one for you.
It's a real poop party.
I love that.
It's like, hey, no food or drinking here. You're like, don't worry about it.
So this ologist has earned the nickname Doctor poop. She wears it with pride. So we took a seat and we talked all about tiny poos, giant poos, pebble poos, pet poos, wombat bricks, and how and why this animal scientist and conservationist analyzes the feces of countless species and loves it.
So please curl up for the scoop.
On this rare science with scatologist Doctor Poop aka doctor Rachel Santomeyerlogo.
Alogy, milogy, knowlogies.
If you could tell me your personal last name Rachel Santa Meyer, got it?
Aka doctor Poop? How long have you been doctor Poop?
I've been doctor Poop for thirteen years. I guess yeah. My parents are so proud.
Hey, the doctor in front of anything is great.
And then how many samples of pooh do you think you have in your seventeen freeze?
In general, we do about eight to ten thousand samples a year. Ooh, smutch, So that's about, you know, one hundred and thirty thousand samples.
Let's get gross.
Let's zoom in and discuss what doodo really is other than something you usually do not want to look at closely. And now you've had your hands in every kind of pooh, I imagine from like geese to hippos to she does.
What are some.
Commonalities and what are some differences? Like what is stool? Is it mostly bacteria? Is it mostly fiber?
Like?
What what is it?
Yeah, it's a combination of everything, right, is it's just the waste product of what we ate and what's in our system and so yeah, it has lots of bacteria, which are sort of our enemy for hormones because it continual us to break down the hormones if we don't get it in the freezer fast. When you look at all these different species like elephants or black rhinos which we have here at the zoo, it's like all fiber. You're like, how is there any pooh in this sample?
Or is it just like cut up hay? You know it's say with the zebras and horses. You know, it's really like this looks just like hey, with some some poop smeared around it. But we can actually look at the poop when we get so familiar with our animals here at the zoo, our staff can see the poop samples and know when the staff have accidentally mixed up the bags because you know, they all look like certain sometimes food item or not, but like talk and poo
kind of looks like little olives. And our different females had like different shapes and size olives, so we knew when they kind of mix them up. You know, the camels they have like golf balls, they have golf ball poop. But the rhinos, of course have the bowling ball, right, and so we don't get we don't necessarily get the bowling balls. We get part of the bowling balls. But yeah, very fibrous.
This imagery will stay on my mind for a while.
And then you know, the the apes and the primates. You know, that's just a whole other story.
But is that more like human?
Yeah, it's more like human. It's definitely more Well, I can't say that because the male black rhino feces is pretty stinky. They use a lot of pheromones and odor cues for communication because they're solitary animals. So but yeah, I think one of the worst samples I've had in
my lab was actually my own dog's poop. You just really wow, you're just like, you know, the doors get closed, you know from the staff that work on their computers versus the fecal lab staff, you know, or when we do the polar bear, it's a lot of like fish and stuff that is pretty stinky.
Okay, So in a herd of giraffes or a pride of lions, or a party of orangutangs, I don't know. I'm just gonna hope that a group of a range tanks is called a party. Actually, hold on, Okay, I just looked it up and it's a congress of orangutangs, which wow, I wish our congresses worked like that.
But anyway, I know you.
Mentioned a little bit about bowling ball rhino poo, which is I'm still boggled by. Does it really come out like a bowling ball?
It does, yes. And then I don't know if you've ever seen a dog do this where they scrape their back legs after they go to the bathroom. Yes, that's a sign of territoriality. They're marking their territory, and rhinos do that. But they purposely step in their feces and then they walk away because that's how they mark their territory. They have these little latrines called mittens where they come by, they defecate, they stop in it, they scrape in it and they walk away rude.
Wow. Wow wow. I don't know what your phone's data plan is, but if you get a hot second, feel free to google rhino pooping and you will find we are in good company with hundreds of thousands of people. So. One video by YouTuber zagif zelion Off shows the moment that a San Diego zoo rhino turns its posterior to the crowd, lifts a tail, and averts its floopy pink poop shoot ooops, letting rumble fourth a dozen wet cannon balls of mashed and digested Hey, a little liquid trickle
at the end, kind of like a delicate bough. And when it comes to smells, why are some so distinct.
It's because of what they eat. Yeah, yeah, so I don't know what I'm feeding my one dog and me. Also just be the bacteria and they're gut microbes that are causing this smell. But yes, there, it's definitely related to food and bacteria.
And now when you're doing your lab work, I've seen pictures of you. You're you're swabbing, you're cutting things, You're you're stirring them with what looks like a tiny immersion blender.
I call it a special test tube blender. Yes, a homogenizer.
A homogenizer is the word, yes, is the science word for it. But it's really like if you were going to froth up like a lot exactly.
I tell people that's our field methods. I said, do not use this to make mixed drinks. This is just for feces. Let's keep it separate. Yes, totally.
What's your pure l routine? Do you have a hand sanitizer preference or is it like do you become desensitized like Boo's pooh.
Fine, you have to.
Be careful because there are diseases and feces, parasites, viruses, and so we had to periodically remind people that this is feces and you have to be careful, and so we have we have lots of protocols. You never, even in your office eat anything that's hit the ground. There's no five second roll around us, for sure. But yeah, we have a dirty lab and we keep feces in a certain place and it has to be either blocked in a bag to be in another place, but or
it's in this in the fecal lab. So we have these strict rules to make sure that we don't have any contamination, any spread of diseases and stuff. So it's really important actually because you know, it still is poop though we're pretty desensitized to it.
Do you think that's where the kind of wiring for shame around number two happens because it's easy to be like I gotta go be, but you would never announce that, Like, are there certain animals? Does it happen more with primates or social animals that seem more embarrassed.
I don't know about embarrassed, but you know they're what I call the elusive poopers, like cats who bury their feces right, they hide their feces, unlike you know, some ungulates like deer that may walk and poop at the same time. So you know, it just kind of really depends on the species.
Mm hmm.
Ps.
I asked the Internet why humans are ashamed of their own poops and got back everything from are innate desired to avoid parasites because even deer and sheep and cows do not graze where they PLoP. To the Bible, so Deuteronomy twenty three to twelve, anyone quote you must have a place outside the camp to go and relieve yourself. And you must have a digging tool in your equipment so that when you relieve yourself, you can dig a
hole and cover up your excrement. So yes, even God politely asked that you drop all deuces downwind and away from the camp kitchen.
Okay, I have so many questions.
From listeners that I'm holding off asking some of them because I know listeners want to ask them. So can I ask you Patreon questions?
Sure?
Okay, good, okay, But before your burning poop questions, a quick break. So each episode we donate to a charity of the ologists choosing, and the Lincoln Park Zoo of Chicago funds so much great conservation work and remains free to all visitors.
Which rules.
So Rachel aka Doctor Poop would like a donation to go to them. It's really beautiful campus, so do take a stroll around next time in the Windy City. So that donation was made possible by sponsors of the show, who you may hear about. Now, okay, let's get to your questions.
The most popular.
Question, I would say we got it was asked by Joe Weenenoffer, sid Rachel Weiss, Haley Hullings Paul Hancock, Jeffrey Doyle, Madeline Winter, Schmidty Thompson, Toby James, and then first time question askers Karen Elliott, Bennett Gerber, Kyle Torres and JJ Pierce. Everyone wants to know. Karen ELLIOT'SWARDZ says wombat poop square?
What was that about?
How?
Why? What?
And Paul Hancock said, how do they make a square poop with what I assume is a round bum hoole?
Wow?
You know, I actually had no idea that it was square because we don't have a lot of Australian species here.
Yeah, it's so weird.
I think something must have gone viral on the internet like a few months ago, because I did not know the pooh square.
Wow, I'll look it up. Yeah, isn't that crazy?
Yeah?
That is crazy because ouch, the corners.
I know, I know they can't.
And it doesn't like form when it hits the ground and be like, I.
Don't know, I don't know, but I thought people were joshing, but apparently they're not. Of course, I'm gonna have your backside with an explanation. Here at Georgia Tech, scientist doctor Patricia Yang, a fellow scatologist lead authored on a paper titled how do wombats make cubed pooh? So they took the intestines of two wombats who died from vehicular womba side and as another author, David Who told Science News quote,
we opened up those intestines like it was Christmas. So they found by blowing up balloons that in the last eight percent of the intestines water is absorbed and the lumps get dry and are shifted around in a way to compress one side and then the other, and then boop, very dry square peg shoots out of a round hole. They can pop out up to one hundred of these two centimeter suckers night, and they stack them up in piles to communicate to other wombats.
What is life?
A lot of people?
Meghan King, Grace Lauren, Joe Farantino, Logan k Don Swart, Ryan Clark, and Emily Crook. First time question askers Emily and Joe They want to know why dogs love to snack on poo Why, Meghan King says, why do dogs enjoy eating cat poops so much? They treat them like I treat non perellas like candies. Also, non parrellas are those flattened chocolate kisses with sprinkles on one side, even though actually the little round sprinkles are the non perellas
and in French that means without equal. But they look like a pile of colorful, hardshelled deer droppings on a microscale. But yes, why do dogs eat cat turds like they're candy?
Do they know something we don't?
Well, first of all, cat poo is really stinky, and there are you know, pretty much they're supposed to be straight carnivores, right, and so they I mean, it's all it's all about what they're eating, right, So and it smells so good, so you know, to their dog, of course, I think it's just I think it's just older. And then you know, dogs maybe like to be a little
bad sometimes. But there is some evolutionary history to feces eating, especially with a female with her litter, because they they want to conceal their litter, so they'll actually eat the feces. And then when before the pups can really do anything on their own, they lick their heine right to cause them to urinate and defecate, and then the moms eat it. So it's really it's really I don't know if more females do it than male dogs, but they there is
a reason why they would eat feces. Now the other species, like my dogs eat worset poop, they eat rabbit poop, they eat dog poop. They I mean, it's terrible. I just you know, it's just really gross, especially when they burp, you know, and they're just like, oh, but anyway, so there is a reason why, you know, the history of it, they at least history of it. So it's to conceal they're dead.
And then other patrons have the question and I will list their names later. Okay, now is later, and first time question askers Kyle Wilkinson and Ashley Curtin and Elliott Warden want to know why do some species of animals eat their own like twice, like lagomorphs like rabbits, and certain animals are like, let's have it a gown.
Yeah, So rabbits have two types of feces they have they defecate out vitamins and minerals, and so they had to actually eat that in order to absorb it. I'm not sure if they have to. I don't know the whole biology behind it. If they have to actually like their body has to break it down a little bit before they can actually ingest it, so they.
Have to eat.
They have to eat it. Then then they have another kind of defecation, which is like the waste product.
Man.
I wonder if they're excited because they are their own vending machine, or if they're like, why do we have to eat your own? Why no one else has the eat their own other than some of us, Like, I wonder this good thing?
We're so cute. I mean, you know, I don't know why why that would be. And except for their digestive system maybe is not as efficient or you know, able to absorb some of those nutrients. Yeah, so they have to you know, eat it.
Yeah, boop, it's leftovers. Yeah, am odd.
First time question asker wants to know how full of poop are we exactly? At any given point in time? Do you think, Wow, how much poop is in us?
I can't remember how long the intestence is, like one hundred and twenty feet or something ridiculous. And so if you're not eating a lot of table, you know, they could be in there for a while.
I think, so, Yeah, isn't it crazy to think whenever you're just like sitting in to get a party that there's a ton of poo there.
But it's just in bodies.
Just I try not to think about it, especially you know, on the airplane when you're all stuck.
Oh, yeah, I was on an airplane this morning.
Yes, oh thought about that.
M m ps. I looked this up and for every one hundred pounds of body weight, you make about a half pound of solid waste a day.
Oh.
Sidgapujar wants to know does any animal have nice smelling poop?
Actually, yes, yeah, the giant panda has poo that smells like tea. They're eating bamboo. It literally smells like tea. When you know, here we were, we freeze dry poop sometimes, and some lucky scientists was freezed drying his giant panda poo while I was freeze drying my fishing catpoo. Look, so yes, uh, giant panda smells like tea.
Casey Newhaven wants to know what's up with corn and why don't we properly digest it? And uh so another person had the same question, which is hilarious.
Yeah, a lot of a lot of species. I don't know if it's just like the fiber the cellular nature of corn that makes it not as digestible without being processed, but we use it to mark a lot of feces, and not a lot of animals can digest corn.
So really Yeah, Melissa Cross had that question too. So it's so if you see kernels, there's nothing wrong with you.
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with you at all.
Maybe.
Yeah.
This next one was asked by Isabel b Holper and Wing, Christina Weaver Joe Weinhoffer, like, why do animals have such different shapes? Why do rabbits poop pebbles? And uh and others are bigger ones, Like what's going on there?
Oh?
You know, I've been asked that question before. I should should have looked it up. But yeah, they all have their different shapes, and like I said, we even individuals have their own special kind of shapes, you know, like horses kind of have the kidney bean shape and then there's pellets and it must be related to their diet. They cause thems to do that and the passage rate through the gut system.
Yeah, okay, I look this up in One theory of pebble poos is that the more likely an animal is to be prey, the more risky it is to go take a drink of water, and the more water their body wants to conserve, producing number twos that are separate heart lumps like nuts.
Is that nuts?
Okay? Last questions, I always ask what do you love about your job as a feces researcher the.
Most, the most job. It's really it's really that I can say I'm making a difference. We're making a difference with conserving wildlife, whether it's you know, small amphibians that
don't get a lot of attension or ferrets. You know, this is, like I said, one of the rarest mammals we have here in North America, and you know I work on a couple of those, and it's just like we we are figuring out, we're finding out why they're having issues breeding or you know, even the year at the zoo when our animals are just you know, it's
very difficult to put them together. Working with the managers so they can help them understand their animals, better understand what's going on inside their animals so they can respond and take care of their animals or put them together when they're ready to breed. That's really rewarding when we're successful, and you know, we have a baby rhino or two, you know, coming out and just you know, the rhinos in particular, the black rinders are critically in dangered species.
You know, there's like five thousand and a little bit over five thousand in the wild. And you know here we've produced too in the last I don't know, I'm going to say since twenty thirteen. And that is really cool and I was part of that, and it was it was really rewarding to see.
Those and so feeling like being a poop detective, lets you have a little bit more context for what the animals are going through, what's best for them.
Yeah, yeah, you know, because you can look at them, but you don't necessarily know what's going on inside. And that is you know, my skill, you know, poop detective. So yeah, and that's so it's great about physiology. You can really understand how animals are responding to their environment.
Wow, so our hearts aren't on our sleeves, they're in our poo. That's right, toilet.
Oh that's amazing.
Thank you so much for all the hard and not always great smelling work that you do.
It's my pleasure.
So ask smart people questions and you're going to learn so much about yourself and others. Maybe too much. And if you want more smologies you can find them at aliward dot com slash smologies. There are tons of episodes. They're all kids, safe, classrooms, safe with experts. We are at ologies on Instagram and Twitter. I'm at Aliward with one L on both. Thank you Zeegrodriguez, Thomas Jared Sleeper of mind Jam Media, and Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio
for working on these. We like to keep these small and short, so you'll find a whole list of credits in the show notes. Thank you for listening and pass them on.
Okay Byebyeges
Bunches Knowges