Heather L. Montgomery - Who Gives a Poop?: Surprising Science from One End to the Other

Also by Heather L. Montgomery

Something Rotten

Bugs Dont Hug

Little Monsters

How Rude!

Wild Discoveries

BLOOMSBURY CHILDRENS BOOKS

Bloomsbury Publishing Inc., part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018

This electronic edition published in 2020 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY CHILDRENS BOOKS, and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published in the United States of America in September 2020 by Bloomsbury Childrens Books

Text copyright 2020 by Heather L. Montgomery

Illustrations copyright 2020 Iris Gottlieb

All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes.

This book is for information purposes only and does not make any medical recommendations. Readers should not try medical experiments at home!

Bloomsbury books may be purchased for business or promotional use.

For information on bulk purchases please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Montgomery, Heather L., author. | Gottlieb, Iris, illustrator.

Title: Who gives a poop? / by Heather L. Montgomery ; illustrated by Iris Gottlieb.

Description: New York : Bloomsbury, 2020.

Summary: The author explores various scientific and medical applications of poop.

ISBN: 978-1-5476-0347-3 (HB)
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0348-0 (eBook)
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0349-7 (XML)

Subjects: LCSH: FecesJuvenile literature. | Animal droppingsJuvenile literature.

Classification: LCC QP159.M66 2020 (print) | LCC QP159 (e-book) | DDC 612.3/6dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020020258

LC e-book record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020020259

Book design by Jeanette Levy

To find out more about our authors and their books please visit www.bloomsbury.com where you will find extracts, author interviews and details of forthcoming events, and to be the first to hear about latest releases and special offers, sign up for our newsletters.

Dedicated to every person who has stick-stirred some scat

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

HUNK OF TONGUE

T he air was brisk, the trucks were loud, and I had a hunk of tongue tucked into my pocket.

I was happy.

Well, not happy about the mangled legs, trail of guts, and cold coyote heart that lay in front of me just a few yards from the interstate.

That coyotewith a ruff at her neck as lush as my kittys and a tail as bushy as my pupsmust have had a run-in with a car and would never howl again. I felt some satisfaction.

Just imagine, there in my pocket sat microscopic strands of DNA codea twisted ribbon of As, Ts, Cs, and Gs that spell out instructions for every paw, claw, nail, or tail on this planet.

Inherited from her mama and papa, those alphabetical strands could answer my questionswell, really, Dr. vonHoldts questionsabout how coyotes have moved across the eastern US. As I rose to return to my car, though, something wiggled in the back of my brain. Once I slipped those slimy bits into the vials and shipped them off, Id lose touch with this creature. Her data would be locked down in a digital database, a cold, hard place where numbers get crunched. Sure, her data (info) would be valued, but my connection to her would be severed. Walking back to my car, I wanted to know more. Where did she go last night? Who did she howl with? What moonlit canyons did she haunt?

I wasnt ready to let her go.

Sidestepping a pile of poop, I almost toppled down the slope. But wait. Those werent the smooth, solid sausages my pup, Piper, excretes. There was something there. Some clue that had me scrambling back up, leaning in, grabbingyes, yes, you safety police, I still had my gloves on. You dont think I fish around in coyote slop without my handy-dandy latex gloves, do you?

The chunks, glossy enough to reflect the October sky, sported chestnut-brown seeds. I hefted a hunk in my hand. The turd was as wide as a quarter, and wiggly white hairs sprang out from the brown gunk. This was no pet poo.

This, I suspected, was the last story the living coyote ever had the chance to tell.

As stinky as it was, I couldnt ignore that story.

My eyes read the obvious stuff: seeds = ate fruit. My finger and thumb mashed through it and registered something gristly and grotesque: one pea-sized paw = ate meat.

So, there I stood beside that interstate, this pile in front of me loaded with information I could not access, odors I could not isolate, treasures I could not cash in. Trained as a biologist, with years working as a naturalist, Ive got plenty of experience squatting, stick in hand, over animal scat. But in all that stirring, rarely had I come up with solid answers. I knew, just knew, there had to be someone out there who could really read a clue from poo. Thats the kind of thinking that led me to spend a few years with my nose down, poking at poop.

Okay, Ill admit it: Ive always been partial to poop. One of my favorite smells is horse manure. Weird, right? But every time I inhale that grassy goodness, Im instantly back at horse camp, a velvety muzzle tickling my cheek. I want that connection with every creature.

What if every time I stepped up to scat, I could feel as if I were beside that bear, bobcat, or beetle hunched and helpless at a moment of vulnerability, pausing to make a deposit?

And, what, in the end, is an animal actually depositing? As I dug into this topic, I discovered mounds more than leftover food. Like a trip down the slippery slide of a digestive tract, questions took me into kinks and curves, places I never would have expectedor ever thought I wanted to go.

Once I put my poo goggles on, I found fecal fun everywhere. Like at the Hawaiian beach where the sand you sift through your fingers might be parrotfish poop.