Nearly all animals poop. Poop is solid waste that is passed out of their bodies. Poop isn’t just waste, though. It can do other things, too. Poop can spread seeds. It can create sandy beaches. It can make a home.
Poop can do all that? Yes! Take a look at the tambaqui fish. It eats the seeds of water plants. Not all the seeds get digested. Some get pooped out and “planted.” Then new water plants grow.
plants seeds
tambaqui
makes sand
parrotfish
Have you ever been to a white sandy beach? You might have been standing on parrotfish poop! Parrotfish eat tiny plants called algae. They bite the algae off corals. Sometimes they eat the corals, too. Then they poop the corals out as bits of sand!
Leaf beetles cover their eggs in poop. Why? The poop hardens. It protects the eggs until they hatch.
leaf beetle eggs
leaf beetle
makes homes
Humans’ solid waste is called stool, feces (FEE‑seas), and excrement (EX‑crum‑ent). Animals’ waste has different names, too. Here are a fewexamples:
castings - worms droppings - birds
dung - cattle, elephants fewmets - deer
frass - insects
guano - bats, seabirds scat - wild animals spraints - otters
