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Title: Did ya really want to know? Post by Jimmy_B on Oct 28th, 2003, 7:59am Today's useless fact - Why does crap stink? You'd think it would draw predators - an evolutionary disadvantage? Sure, ripe droppings can let a predator know that prey is in the neighborhood. But don't forget that smell works both ways: Herbivores, for instance, are extremely sensitive to the sulfur compounds present in carnivore droppings. If a deer happens to stumble across some fresh wolf doodee, it might rethink the day's foraging plans. The predator-prey thing, however, is an incidental issue here, for crap stench serves a far more important role in the wild. When it comes to communication, animals do it with dung. Crap is an almost universal mode of discourse among animals of the same species, transmitting information about territory, feeding strategy, and the like. "Most mammals other than people are far more inclined to use chemical cues to communicate than other kinds of displays," says Russ Mason of the Philadelphia-based Monell Chemical Senses Center, a kind of think tank of smell. Consider your dog on its morning walk. When it pauses to examine another dog's calling card, it's involved in a fairly detailed act of social intercourse, learning what competitors or eligible mates have been around, what's been on the menu - important stuff. It's as if it's reading the newspaper. Had the crap been scentless, your dog might have missed it altogether. And, really, what good is an uninformed pet? source used: "Why Moths Hate Thomas Edison?" Jim |
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