The History of Poop Is Really the History of Technology | WIRED

I later learned that we were echoing an ancient exclamation at something rotten and stinking, the Indo-European root pu, from which stem putrid and putrefy. Animal excrement is generally disgusting to us. But this is apparently a reaction that we learn, not an automatic biological reflex. Young children aren t repelled by excrement, and many mammals practice coprophagy, or excrement eating, some of our primate relatives included. In her 1983 book Gorillas in the Mist, Dian Fossey noted that gorillas of all ages have been observed eating dung, their own and others , fresh from the source: the animals catch the dung lobe in one hand before it contacts the earth. They then bite into the lobe and while chewing smack their lips with apparent relish. Rabbits and some other plant-eating mammals get the vitamin B12 they need by routinely eating food twice, the second time after its residues have been enriched by their gut microbes. Studies of rabbits and mice have found that the presence of their excreted pellets in the cage tends to lessen aggressive behavior, lower heart rates, and offer positive, comforting effects, perhaps because they suggest familiarity and therefore safety.

via www.wired.com

Much of this I did not know.