When species eat feces

This morning as I was walking Halley and Harry, Halley took one of her frequent detours to sniff out the morning news, while Harry and I stood by patiently. My thoughts wandered (as they usually do, having no natural leader among them) and I didn’t notice that Halley began to squat down. When I finally looked in her direction, imagine my surprise to see Harry eating the Play Doh right as it was being squeezed out of the factory!

I grabbed him by the collar and scolded him, “You crazy canine! You don’t have to take everything Halley tells you to do literally, you know!”

Then I remembered a story my father once told me about a “safari” down in Florida to which he had taken some other family members (I had already grown up and moved out by then). He said that when they came upon a herd of elephants, he saw one elephant insert his trunk up to his eyeballs inside his companion. My Dad had opined that perhaps this elephant was selflessly helping his fellow-elephant with a case of constipation. Sure enough, the trunk re-emerged with a huge lump of, um, well you know what — which the pachyderm proctologist proceeded to devour with relish. (No, not pickle relish). The reactions of all observers were generally along the lines of “Ewwwww!”

Remembering this story led me to wonder how common this practice might be among various species of animals.

After some creative Googling, I found that this behavior is called “coprophagia” — an excellent word formed from Greek kopros (feces) + phagein (to eat). According to Wikipedia, natural selection has made the practice a regular feature of certain species, being beneficial to their survival in various ways. Elephants, for instance, are born with sterile intestines, and need to load up on bacteria from the guts of other elephants before they can digest their food properly.

The article also lists several possible reasons why dogs participate in the feces-fest. Some sources indicate that it’s a generally harmless behavior, if disgusting. I’d have to admit that it would be nice not to have to pick up after them — but it sure makes that lick to the face feel a lot less friendly.