# Aussies...need scat ID. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 10, 2010, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aussies-need-scat-id/549820 "2010-08-10T13:40:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aussies-need-scat-id/549820/1 "2010-08-10T13:40:33Z")
A couple of my kids are living right in town (in a country town in NSW) and my son brought to my attention today a very weird poop that has left both him AND me puzzled. He claims he’s seen many of these scatalogical specimens in the backyard, and is most perturbed. The scat I saw measured about 5cm long and about 2cm wide. It was tapered at either end, but was composed of seeds and grains, with a bit of mucosal muck to bind it all together. It was not like a rabbit or possum pellet, and surely not from any bird. I suggested a fox, but given that the kids are living in the thriving metropolis of Corowa, it seems unlikely\*\* What is flying-fox shit like? How about fruit bats? What sort of critter craps out a (relatively) big log of (relatively) undigested grains? \*\*I say this because I live another 2km FURTHER out of town, with chooks, and almost on the banks of the Murray River, and we’ve never had a fox here…yet. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aussies-need-scat-id/549820/2 "2010-08-10T13:47:32Z")
Ah. Be on the lookout for free-roaming Ella Fitzgeralds. ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aussies-need-scat-id/549820/3 "2010-08-11T02:44:40Z")
Drop Bears. Oh and there will be foxes around, plenty of the little buggers. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aussies-need-scat-id/549820/4 "2010-08-11T04:14:40Z")
You’ve got to love the way that we Aussies always lift the the overall calibre of this forum. Given the number of foxes now domiciled in the Melbourne metropolitan area, that they are active in towns along the river would be more likely than not. Then again so would drop bears. My money would be brush tailed or ring tailed possums (who’ve raided a hen run or an avary) … or a drop bear. Koala’s scats have that shape but they don’t eat seeds. [What scat is that?](http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2007/09/26/2044094.htm) Or the published version: [Tracks, Scats and Other Traces. A Field Guide to Australian Mammals](http://www.shop.nsw.gov.au/pubdetails.jsp?publication=7745) ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aussies-need-scat-id/549820/5 "2010-08-11T11:25:00Z")
IME flying fox crap is rarely so coherent as an actual pellet. We have bazillions around here, and the crap is usually a horrible dark greeny semi liquid that lands on the side of the house when the littel buggers void in flight and dribbles down leaving a nasty stain. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aussies-need-scat-id/549820/6 "2010-08-11T14:12:54Z")
I live 15 minutes drive from the Adelaide CBD, I get foxes, I even had one screaming at my front door one morning. I get koalas, possums and echidnas too. But I don’t recognise the description of the scat. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aussies-need-scat-id/549820/7 "2010-08-11T22:45:28Z")
It almost certainly isn’t scat at all. Rather it sounds like a bird pellet. Many birds swallow foods and hold them in the crop to grind them up. Anything too hard to be ground, such as bones or seeds, gets regurgitated. From the description I would say it’s a [currawong](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3071/2891595192_e42cd7cc86.jpg) [pellet](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_U75Vx0SZlhA/SEX1q-fsFPI/AAAAAAAAAEw/kJaAB5qg8LU/s400/pellet.jpg). The birds eat a lot of fruits with a fleshy coating and hard seeds such as palm, privet and pepper tree berries. They remove the flesh and leave the seeds behind in a mucilaginous pellet. > [@](#): > > What is flying-fox shit like? How about fruit bats? Flying foxes and fruit bats are the same animals. They live on an purely liquid diet, and their shit is pretty much what you’d expect from that: brown and very runny.