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47-482: A road apple is a term for animal feces , often on a road and/or from a horse. Road apple may also refer to: Animal feces Feces ( or faeces ; sg. : faex ) are the solid or semi-solid remains of food that was not digested in the small intestine , and has been broken down by bacteria in the large intestine . Feces contain a relatively small amount of metabolic waste products such as bacterially altered bilirubin , and dead epithelial cells from

94-505: A silt known as mulm or humus on the bottom. This material, some called undissolved organic carbon breaks down into dissolved organic carbon and can bond to heavy metal ions via chelation . It can also break down into colored dissolved organic matter such as tannin , a specific form of tannic acid . In saltwater bodies, organic material breaks down and forms a marine snow . This example of detritus commonly consists of organic materials such as dead phytoplankton and zooplankton ,

141-407: A detritus cycle. The Monaco system , where an anaerobic layer is created in the tank, to denitrify the organic compounds in the tank, and also the other nitrogen compounds, so that the decomposition process continues until the stage where water, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen are produced, has also been implemented. Initially, as the name suggests, filtration systems in water tanks often worked using

188-445: A few. The exact composition of this detritus varies based on location and time of year, as it is very closely tied to primary production . Detritus occurs in a variety of terrestrial habitats including forest, chaparral and grassland. In forests, the detritus is typically dominated by leaf, twig, and bacteria litter as measured by biomass dominance. This plant litter provides important cover for seedling protection as well as cover for

235-409: A plant in having fruit is that animals will eat the fruit and unknowingly disperse the seed in doing so. This mode of seed dispersal is highly successful, as seeds dispersed around the base of a plant are unlikely to succeed and often are subject to heavy predation . Provided the seed can withstand the pathway through the digestive system, it is not only likely to be far away from the parent plant, but

282-432: A source of nutrients, and are not suitable as a source of nutrition on their own. However, there are many microorganisms which multiply in natural environments. These microorganisms do not simply absorb nutrients from these particles, but also shape their own bodies so that they can take the resources they lack from the area around them, and this allows them to make use of excreta as a source of nutrients. In practical terms,

329-470: A valuable purpose in paleontology because they provide direct evidence of the predation and diet of extinct organisms. Coprolites may range in size from a few millimetres to more than 60 centimetres. Palaeofeces are ancient feces , often found as part of archaeological excavations or surveys. Intact paleofeces of ancient people may be found in caves in arid climates and in other locations with suitable preservation conditions. These are studied to determine

376-459: A variety of arthropods, reptiles and amphibians. Some insect larvae feed on the detritus. Fungi and bacteria continue the decomposition process after grazers have consumed larger elements of the organic materials, and animal trampling has assisted in mechanically breaking down organic matter. At the later stages of decomposition, mesophilic micro-organisms decompose residual detritus, generating heat from exothermic processes; such heat generation

423-400: Is a complex one. In land ecosystems, the waste products of plants and animals collect mainly on the ground (or on the surfaces of trees), and as decomposition proceeds, plants are supplied with fertilizer in the form of inorganic salts. In water ecosystems, relatively little waste collects on the water bed, and so the progress of decomposition in water takes a more important role. Investigating

470-403: Is a poor source of nutrition, and so univalves pay no attention to it, but after several days, microorganisms begin to multiply on it again, its nutritional balance improves, and so they eat it again. Through this process of eating the detritus many times over and harvesting the microorganisms from it, the detritus thins out, becomes fractured and becomes easier for the microorganisms to use, and so

517-502: Is among the world's most expensive coffees. Paper is also made from elephant dung in Thailand. Haathi Chaap is a brand of paper made from elephant dung. Dog feces was used in the tanning process of leather during the Victorian era . Collected dog feces, known as "pure", "puer", or "pewer", were mixed with water to form a substance known as "bate", because proteolytic enzymes in

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564-471: Is associated with the well known phenomenon of the elevated temperature of composting . There is an extremely large number of detritus feeders in water. After all, a large quantity of material is carried in by water currents. Even if an organism stays in a fixed position, as long as it has a system for filtering water, it will be able to obtain enough food to get by. Many immobile organisms survive in this way, using developed gills or tentacles to filter

611-536: Is burned as fuel in many countries. Animals such as the giant panda and zebra possess gut bacteria capable of producing biofuel. The bacterium in question, Brocadia anammoxidans , can be used to synthesize the rocket fuel hydrazine . A coprolite is fossilized feces and is classified as a trace fossil . In paleontology they give evidence about the diet of an animal. They were first described by William Buckland in 1829. Prior to this, they were known as "fossil fir cones " and " bezoar stones". They serve

658-494: Is called constipation . The appearance of human fecal matter varies according to diet and health. Normally it is semisolid, with a mucus coating. A combination of bile and bilirubin , which comes from dead red blood cells , gives feces the typical brown color. After the meconium , the first stool expelled, a newborn's feces contains only bile , which gives it a yellow-green color. Breast feeding babies expel soft, pale yellowish, and not quite malodorous matter; but once

705-648: Is deposited on the surface of the ground, taking forms such as the humic soil beneath a layer of fallen leaves. In aquatic ecosystems, most detritus is suspended in water, and gradually settles. In particular, many different types of material are collected together by currents, and much material settles in slowly flowing areas. A large amount of detritus is used as a source of nutrition for animals . In particular, many bottom feeding animals ( benthos ) living in mud flats feed in this way. In particular, since excreta are materials which other animals do not need, whatever energy value they might have, they are often unbalanced as

752-640: Is due to skatole , and thiols ( sulfur -containing compounds), as well as amines and carboxylic acids. Skatole is produced from tryptophan via indoleacetic acid. Decarboxylation gives skatole. The perceived bad odor of feces has been hypothesized to be a deterrent for humans, as consuming or touching it may result in sickness or infection. Feces are discharged through the anus or cloaca during defecation . This process requires pressures that may reach 100 millimetres of mercury (3.9 inHg) (13.3 kPa) in humans and 450 millimetres of mercury (18 inHg) (60 kPa) in penguins. The forces required to expel

799-427: Is even provided with its own fertilizer. Organisms that subsist on dead organic matter or detritus are known as detritivores , and play an important role in ecosystems by recycling organic matter back into a simpler form that plants and other autotrophs may absorb once again. This cycling of matter is known as the biogeochemical cycle . To maintain nutrients in soil it is therefore important that feces returns to

846-591: Is experienced primarily in relation to the sense of taste (either perceived or imagined) and, secondarily to anything that causes a similar feeling by sense of smell, touch, or vision. There is a Pile of Poo emoji represented in Unicode as U+1F4A9 💩 PILE OF POO , called unchi or unchi-kun in Japan. Poop is the center of toilet humor , and is commonly an interest of young children and teenagers. Detritus In terrestrial ecosystems detritus

893-520: Is known as coprophagia , and occurs in various animal species such as young elephants eating the feces of their mothers to gain essential gut flora , or by other animals such as dogs, rabbits, and monkeys. Feces and urine, which reflect ultraviolet light, are important to raptors such as kestrels , who can see the near ultraviolet and thus find their prey by their middens and territorial markers. Seeds also may be found in feces. Animals who eat fruit are known as frugivores . An advantage for

940-535: Is no singular form, making the word a plurale tantum ; out of various major dictionaries, only one enters variation from plural agreement . "Feces" is used more in biology and medicine than in other fields (reflecting science 's tradition of classical Latin and Neo-Latin ) There are many synonyms in informal registers for feces, just like there are for urine . Many are euphemistic , colloquial , or both; some are profane (such as shit ), whereas most belong chiefly to child-directed speech (such as poo or

987-479: Is present as plant litter and other organic matter that is intermixed with soil , known as soil organic matter . The detritus of aquatic ecosystems is organic substances suspended in the water and accumulated in depositions on the floor of the body of water ; when this floor is a seabed , such a deposition is called marine snow . The remains of decaying plants or animals, or their tissue parts, and feces gradually lose their form due to physical processes and

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1034-470: Is relatively high in paleofeces, making it more reliable than skeletal DNA retrieval. The reason this analysis is possible at all is due to the digestive system not being entirely efficient, in the sense that not everything that passes through the digestive system is destroyed. Not all of the surviving material is recognizable, but some of it is. Generally, this material is the best indicator archaeologists can use to determine ancient diets, as no other part of

1081-517: Is the scientific terminology, while the term stool is also commonly used in medical contexts. Outside of scientific contexts, these terms are less common, with the most common layman's term being poop or poo . The term shit is also in common use, although it is widely considered vulgar or offensive. There are many other terms, see below. The word faeces is the plural of the Latin word faex meaning "dregs". In most English-language usage , there

1128-562: Is used as a cement to make adobe ( mudbrick ) huts, or even in throwing sports, especially with cow and camel dung. Kopi luwak , or civet coffee, is coffee made from coffee beans that have been eaten and excreted by Asian palm civets ( Paradoxurus hermaphroditus ). Giant pandas provide fertilizer for the world's most expensive green tea . In Malaysia , tea is made from the droppings of stick insects fed on guava leaves. In northern Thailand , elephants are used to digest coffee beans in order to make Black Ivory coffee , which

1175-485: The Berlin Method , which employs a piece of equipment called a protein skimmer , which produces air bubbles which the detritus adheres to and forces it outside the tank before it decomposes and also a highly porous type of natural rock called live rock where many benthos and bacteria live (hermatype which has been dead for some time is often used), which causes the detritus-feeding benthos and micro-organisms to undergo

1222-441: The diet and health of the people who produced them through the analysis of seeds, small bones, and parasite eggs found inside. Feces may contain information about the person excreting the material as well as information about the material. They also may be analyzed chemically for more in-depth information on the individual who excreted them, using lipid analysis and ancient DNA analysis. The success rate of usable DNA extraction

1269-504: The palindromic word poop ) or to crude humor (such as crap , dump , load and turd .). The feces of animals often have special names (some of them are slang), for example: In all human cultures, feces elicit varying degrees of disgust in adults. Children under two years typically have no disgust response to it, suggesting it is culturally derived. Disgust toward feces appears to be strongest in cultures where flush toilets make olfactory contact with human feces minimal. Disgust

1316-450: The action of decomposers , including grazers, bacteria , and fungi . Decomposition , the process by which organic matter is decomposed, occurs in several phases. Micro- and macro-organisms that feed on it rapidly consume and absorb materials such as proteins , lipids , and sugars that are low in molecular weight , while other compounds such as complex carbohydrates are decomposed more slowly. The decomposing microorganisms degrade

1363-463: The archaeological record is so direct an indicator. A process that preserves feces in a way that they may be analyzed later is the Maillard reaction . This reaction creates a casing of sugar that preserves the feces from the elements. To extract and analyze the information contained within, researchers generally have to freeze the feces and grind it up into powder for analysis. Animal dung occasionally

1410-423: The area from which they came, which is not always the case in human society where food may be transported from rural areas to urban populations and then feces disposed of into a river or sea. Depending on the individual and the circumstances, human beings may defecate several times a day, every day, or once every two or three days. Extensive hardening of the feces that interrupts this routine for several days or more

1457-514: The baby begins to eat, and the body starts expelling bilirubin from dead red blood cells, its matter acquires the familiar brown color. At different times in their life, human beings will expel feces of different colors and textures. A stool that passes rapidly through the intestines will look greenish; lack of bilirubin will make the stool look like clay. The feces of animals, e.g. guano and manure , often are used as fertilizer . Dry animal dung , such as that of camel , bison and cattle ,

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1504-569: The breeding and growth of marine resources . In ecosystems on land, far more essential material is broken down as dead material passing through the detritus chain than is broken down by being eaten by animals in a living state. In both land and aquatic ecosystems, the role played by detritus is too large to ignore. In contrast to land ecosystems, dead materials and excreta in aquatic ecosystems are typically transported by water flow; finer particles tend to be transported farther or suspended longer. In freshwater bodies organic material from plants can form

1551-406: The complex carbohydrates are also steadily broken down and disappear over time. What is left behind by the detritivores is then further broken down and recycled by decomposers , such as bacteria and fungi . This detritus cycle plays a large part in the so-called purification process, whereby organic materials carried in by rivers is broken down and disappears, and an extremely important part in

1598-549: The demand. In other words, during winter, plant-like organisms are inactive and collect fertilizer, but if the temperature rises to some extent they will use this up in a very short period. It is not entirely true that their productivity falls during the warmest periods. Organisms such as dinoflagellate have mobility, the ability to take in solid food, and the ability to photosynthesise. This type of micro-organism can take in substances such as detritus to grow, without waiting for it to be broken down into fertilizer. In recent years,

1645-508: The dog feces helped to relax the fibrous structure of the hide before the final stages of tanning. Dog feces collectors were known as pure finders . Elephants, hippos , koalas and pandas are born with sterile intestines, and require bacteria obtained from eating the feces of their mothers to digest vegetation. In India, cow dung and cow urine are major ingredients of the traditional Hindu drink Panchagavya . Politician Shankarbhai Vegad stated that they can cure cancer . Feces

1692-415: The feces are generated through muscular contractions and a build-up of gases inside the gut, prompting the sphincter to relieve the pressure and release the feces. After an animal has digested eaten material, the remains of that material are discharged from its body as waste. Although it is lower in energy than the food from which it is derived, feces may retain a large amount of energy, often 50% of that of

1739-422: The level of inorganic salts in sea ecosystems shows that unless there is an especially large supply, the quantity increases from winter to spring—but is normally extremely low in summer. As such, the quantity of seaweed present reaches a peak in early summer and then decreases. The thinking is that organisms like plants grow quickly in warm periods and thus the quantity of inorganic salts is not enough to keep up with

1786-453: The lining of the gut. Feces are discharged through the anus or cloaca during defecation . Feces can be used as fertilizer or soil conditioner in agriculture. They can also be burned as fuel or dried and used for construction . Some medicinal uses have been found. In the case of human feces , fecal transplants or fecal bacteriotherapy are in use. Urine and feces together are called excreta . The distinctive odor of feces

1833-412: The microorganisms that multiply on it. For example, mud flats are inhabited by many univalves which are detritus feeders. When these detritus feeders take in detritus with microorganisms multiplying on it, they mainly break down and absorb the microorganisms, which are rich in proteins, and excrete the detritus, which is mostly complex carbohydrates, having hardly broken it down at all. At first, this dung

1880-470: The most important constituents of detritus are complex carbohydrates , which are persistent (difficult to break down), and the microorganisms which multiply using these absorb carbon from the detritus, and materials such as nitrogen and phosphorus from the water in their environment to synthesise the components of their own cells. A characteristic type of food chain called the detritus cycle takes place involving detritus feeders ( detritivores ), detritus and

1927-462: The organic materials so as to gain the resources they require for their survival and reproduction. Accordingly, simultaneous to microorganisms' decomposition of the materials of dead plants and animals is their assimilation of decomposed compounds to construct more of their biomass (i.e., to grow their own bodies). When microorganisms die, fine organic particles are produced. If small animals (that normally feed on microorganisms) eat these particles,

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1974-437: The original food. This means that of all food eaten, a significant amount of energy remains for the decomposers of ecosystems. Many organisms feed on feces, from bacteria to fungi to insects such as dung beetles , who can sense odors from long distances. Some may specialize in feces, while others may eat other foods. Feces serve not only as a basic food, but also as a supplement to the usual diet of some animals. This process

2021-409: The outer walls of diatoms and coccolithophores, dead skin and scales of fish, and fecal pellets. This material will slowly sink to the seafloor, where it makes up the majority of sediment in some areas. Once settled, the material will not only contribute to sediments but will help to feed different species of detritivore , organisms which feed on detritus, such as annelid worms and sea cucumbers, to name

2068-425: The particles collect inside the intestines of the consumers, and change shape into large pellets of dung . As a result of this process, most of the materials of dead organisms disappear and are not visible and recognizable in any form, but are present in the form of a combination of fine organic particles and the organisms that used them as nutrients . This combination is detritus. In ecosystems on land, detritus

2115-472: The water bed do not simply suck in water through their tubes, but also extend them to fish for detritus on the surface of the bed. In contrast, from the point of view of organisms using photosynthesis such as plants and plankton , detritus reduces the transparency of the water and gets in the way of this process. Given that these organisms also require a supply of nutrient salts , in other words fertilizer , for photosynthesis, their relationship with detritus

2162-436: The water to take in food, a process known as filter feeding . Another more widely used method of feeding, which also incorporates filter feeding, is a system where an organism secretes mucus to catch the detritus in lumps, and then carries these to its mouth using an area of cilia . Many organisms, including sea slugs and serpent's starfish, scoop up the detritus which has settled on the water bed. Bivalves which live inside

2209-440: The word detritus has also come to be used with aquariums (the word "aquarium" is a general term for any installation for keeping aquatic animals). When animals such as fish are kept in an aquarium, substances such as excreta, mucus, and dead skin cast off during moulting are produced by the animals. These substances naturally generate detritus, which is continually broken down by microorganisms. Modern sealife aquariums often use

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