Whether you call it scat, dung, frass, guano or feces, it’s still good ol’ poop.
Sure, it’s a topic that no one really wants to discuss -- especially in public.
But set aside the natural “ewww” factor when visiting “The Scoop on Poop: The Science of What Animals Leave Behind,” the new exhibit at Fernbank Natural History Museum, and you might learn some interesting tidbits about the important -- and unusual -- purposes of waste material.
“Kids will think it’s cool and funny, and adults will like the scientific aspect, like how poop can be used to track animals rather than just being something gross on the trail,” said Lynn Anders, an education programs manager specializing in animal programs at Fernbank.
Anders said this while standing in front of one of the many “Did you know?” placards plastered on the walls of the exhibit -- this particular one informing visitors that whale waste stimulates the growth of phytoplankton.
The bulk of the exhibit, based on the book of the same name by Dr. Wayne Lynch, contains factual nuggets -- so to speak -- written whimsically.
But curiosity-seekers can touch replicas of elephant poop (plastic mounds mixed with straw for authenticity), take a close look at the 22 live giant hissing cockroaches in their glass-enclosed habitat, and study a trio of scurrying house mice in a segment that explains how droppings can cause disease.
Want to know what it feels like to be a dung beetle, those dark insects whose lives are spent “rolling” dung balls for food sources? The “Dung Beetle Derby” game -- sort of a pinball machine with a couple of plastic beetles and a mound of fake dung -- gives humans the chance to race their beetles as they push their dung up an incline.
Look, some things are exhausting when you’re an inch long.
The exhibit also identifies some idiosyncratic uses of excrement.
For animals such as a male crane, feces are part of an oh-so-romantic mating ritual. To demonstrate his prowess and impress the ladies, a male buffalo will throw dung in the air during courtship.
Some spiders, frogs and snakes are fortunate -- depending upon whom you ask -- to look like excrement and use their odd appearance as camouflage.
But humans have found creative benefits of waste material, too.
In the 1970s, an English inventor powered a car with methane gas created from chicken poop. Some countries still burn feces for fuel for heating or cooking. Others build huts with material mixed with excrement.
For most people, though, the closest they want to get to anything with the word poop in it is the plastic “Porky Pooper” in the gift shop, a tiny pink pig that excretes ... jelly beans.
Exhibit preview
“The Scoop on Poop: The Science of What Animals Leave Behind”
Opening celebration 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. Exhibit runs through Sept. 3. $17.50 (adults), $16.50 (students/seniors), $15.50 (children 3-12), free (children 2 and younger). Fernbank Museum of Natural History, 767 Clifton Road N.E., Atlanta. 404-929-6300, www.fernbankmuseum.org.
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