Words and pics by Howard Birnstihl
All I can say about the character in the accompanying pic is he’s a real show-off. And definitely not anal retentive. It reminds me of my early days at Upwey primary school when the greatest challenge was to pee over the high red brick wall surrounding the boys toilet block.
I seem to remember Alan Pearson was the best at it and perhaps that’s the real origin of his nickname, Peo, rather than just the usual Aussie habit of lopping off a few final letters that most of us have to endure.
????????????? This little critter, a nymph of some species I’m not sure of, (perhaps you could find out) also reminds me of the prophets of doom in the late nineteenth century, who, aghast at the forecast of a population boom with the advent of the twentieth century, feared a world swamped by unmanageable piles of horse manure.?? The expected was replaced by the unexpected.? They hadn’t, of course, anticipated the automobile.? If they were concerned about what came out of all those horses’ behinds it was nothing compared to the scale of the problems caused by what comes out of rear ends of the world’s motor cars.
????????????? If you were unlucky enough to fall ill back in the 1600 – 1700 period your local GP would no doubt have spent much time in examining your ‘doings’ to find the cause of your ailment.?? This was not the most scientific of methods and today doctors have chucked that habit.? It’s now left to small children and naturalists for whom old habits die hard.? I even have a book on my shelves which deals entirely with the subject of animal poo and its contents.?? Studying these ‘scats’ of course is not unlike ASIO agents searching a suspect’s rubbish bins in order to? create a profile.?? Rather than spending half a lifetime laying traps in order to estimate the antechinus population, a study of the droppings of its natural predators will indicate quite accurately not only the numbers of this endangered animal, but the general distribution as well.
The habit of marking territorial boundaries with their outpourings is a well- known animal habit, and like the tiny lava in the first photograph, wallabies refuse to hide their light under a bushel, preferring to drop their little calling cards overtly upon the top of a rock. What better way to display your little sculpture than putting it on a pedestal? Not only is this akin to the idea of luminous patches on road-side posts, but I imagine in the cool of the evening, when macropods are most active, the comfort of a heat retaining rock close to the bare behind is not unwelcome. Reminds me, must check Ebay for heated toilet seats.
????????????? Just as many Australian plant seeds will only germinate after the heat of a bushfire, those of the mistletoe (a parasite on many of our trees) will only spring to life after being eaten by the aptly named mistletoe bird and squirted out its rear end.?? And speaking of rear ends, I have strong memories of my children playing in the bath.? Quite feral, these little monsters were never happier than when having bubble blowing competitions… via their rear ends. Perhaps they got the idea when out with me on a field expedition examining various pond life.?? The water beetle in the accompanying pic had become quite an expert by the time we found him.
Blowflies, I have to say, are not much more sophisticated. Playing in rubbish tips is obviously not a habit to be encouraged, but even when out in the wholesome countryside they will persist with that nasty habit of chewing gum. This of course could be tolerated if only they’d keep the darned stuff in their mouths, but they insist on blowing bubbles. I’ve heard one lame excuse that this is similar to the way cows use four stomach compartments to digest their food…regurgitating it and rechewing it. Flies reckon this bubble blowing business helps them digest their breakfast. A likely story. Oh, and while we’re talking cows…not a good idea to stand too close when they’re eating… at either end. All that acid produced in all that digesting results in… well, let’s not go into detail. Let’s just say I would never advise sharing a bath with a cow.
Did you know wombats have cubular droppings? One just has to hope the corners are not too sharp. And that reminds me of another old theory where camels were once thought to be responsible for the pyramids. {It was thought they may have triangular arse holes}. If faint hearted, please don’t read that previous sentence.
But seeing we’ve hit rock bottom [oops], what about dung beetles?? You heard the one about a dung beetle going in to a bar and asking, ‘is this stool taken?’ Hmmmm. Sorry. Anyway, these cute little critters love nothing better than rolling their little bundles along, taking them home to the delight of the hungry kids.? However, as is so often the case when disturbing the balance of nature, our 500 local species, brought up on the high quality poo of our marsupials, found the slop of the introduced species not to their liking.? We had to send some of our experts over to Hawaii for a holiday where they ‘borrowed’ a few of the local species and smuggled them back here in their luggage.? Good thing too, otherwise we may all be knee deep in cow pats without their good work.?? Our soil wouldn’t have benefited either without their efforts, so all in all, vive le dung beetle.
To raise the tone of this article a little, let me remind you of that most inventive of creatures, the octopus. Rather than limiting its rear end to ablutional activities, this multi limbed marvel can zoom through the water using jet propulsion from the aforementioned orifice. Pretty smart eh? However, I am forced to insert a warning here: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!
And as a final point, did you know if you collected all the droppings of a single elephant over its entire lifetime and laid them out in one long line you’d probably be locked up?
Well, I could go on talking about this delightful subject for hours but I just noticed the time. I have to shoot off to the cinema. They’re replaying “Kenny”.
