Talk about Leftovers

Last Updated (Monday, 29 November 1999 16:00) Written by Raymond Nakamura

I had just been talking to my almost four-year-old the other day about her mammoth poop, when I came across an article on Woolly Mammoth dung. They ate it. I wonder if this will feature in the next Ice Age movie.

In the gut of a four-ton adult male found in northern Russia, who entered the deep freeze twenty thousand years ago, scientists discovered fungal spores that only grow on dung exposed to air. This was considered further evidence that the Woolly Mammoths were in desperate times. They ate grass, but as the climate warmed, forests took over the landscape and took away their livelihood. Woolly Mammoths went extinct about ten thousand years ago. Humans have also been implicated, but climate change nows seems to be the main culprit.

Having dung like dinner is not totally random behaviour. Eating plants is tough work. Most animals need special bacteria to help. Bunnies commonly eat poop that has only gone through once. Cows take advantage of their gut bacteria by chewing their cud. The little useless bit in us known as the appendix is a great big thing in elephants (as most parts of elephants are). It stores bacteria for breaking down cellulose. But elephants are not that efficient at getting nutrition from the vegetation they eat, so they have to eat a lot and their dung still has a lot of good fibre left in it. Modern elephants are known to eat dung in desperate times and young Asian elephants eat the dung of their mothers, apparently to pick up bacteria capable of breaking down cellulose into digestible bits.

I was going to say I don't expect dung to be on my dinner table any time soon, but some people are into the world's most expensive coffee, which comes out the end of a civet cat.

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