Must admit, that as an otherwise “normal” middle-class North American male, I have still got the toilet hunor gene working full-time.
I have become to wonder, do any other animals, I am thinking likely primates, take any perverse pleasure in grossing out their peers via the olfactory nerves? Or are we supposedly intelligent humans the only ones who get this low form of humor?
Do any critters gas their prey? Do any animals use fecal matter or flatulence as a social or anti-social tool? (I am just smart enough to know that skunks don’t count for purposes of this question;))
Monkeys have been known to fling poo at their opponents. That’s pretty antisocial, if you ask me.
Only because they don’t wear shoes. Bush was lucky.
Well, it’s harder for us to throw poo because we wear pants.
I’ve read that Koko the gorilla used the sign for toilet to signify anything distasteful or that she didn’t like, without coaching from her handlers.
Presumably, it serves an evolutionary purpose.
Avoiding fecal matter reduces the chances of many deadly & communicable diseases, so humans & other primates who learn this distaste for such things would have an evolutionary advantage.
Medieval Bestiaries told how certain antelopes used to emit “enormous farts” when pursued, which “covered several acres”. T.H. White*, who translated the Bestiary, dryly commented that many herivores are known to “void their excrements when escaping”, without calling attention to the hyperbole.
I know that garter snakes (and others) can exude some p[retty awful stuff on you, which I assume is snake poop.
So certainly animas can excrete to avoid predators, although I’m sure it’s not intentional, but rather an evolutionarily successful response.
I agree with t-bonham’s response, but it doesn’t really seem germane to the OP.
As for Koko and that bunch, the question of whether they are actually using sign-scatology intentionally (as depicted by the oh-so-very-trustworthy Michael Crichton in “Congo”) or if it’s the overzealous interpretation of behaviorists eager to see their theories confirmed, I’ll step aside from. The question of Animal Cognition has produced several conferences and books, and I don’t really know the answer, although I tend to side with the Clever Hans school.
- Yes, the same as the author of The Sword in the Stone and The Once and Future King.
Hippopotamuses (hippopatami? hippos) spin their tails and fling their poo. Not aware if they do it for humor, though.
The experts seem to think it’s either territorial marking behavior, letting others know that this is their territory; or that it’s hiding behavior, to prevent predators from knowing they are nearby.
Yes, these seem to be completely opposite reasons for the same behavior. Maybe someday the experts will agree on which one is the correct reason.
What predators do hippos have?