3 ms·
That wasn’t in my copy of Rudyard Kipling’s “Just So Stories.” A little more seriously, that sounds like a behavior that would be beneficial for many creatures
by shermantanktop 3y ago
That wasn’t in my copy of Rudyard Kipling’s “Just So Stories.”
A little more seriously, that sounds like a behavior that would be beneficial for many creatures, and yet only a few do anything like that. If it were effective, it’d be common.
- selfsimilar 3y agoDogs eat other dogs' excrement in part to keep a healthy and diverse gut culture. I prefer kissing.
- thaumasiotes 3y agoI have not heard that this is known to be a reason dogs do that - it's more common for them to eat their own feces, which can't have any gut-culture benefit - but it does work in humans, where it's called a "fecal transplant".
- 6510 3y agoHow can you prefer one thing over the other if you haven't tried both? It's so funny how we are set up to think we are in control but overriding the default here would take some serious effort. Who is in charge really? The gut microbes order specific kinds of food then we obey? Trying to refuse to eat or change the order is pretty hard.
- pushedx 3y agoDogs sniffing butts?
- shermantanktop 3y agoMaybe? It’d have be pretty intense to transfer microbiome diversity.
- JoshTko 3y agoDon't nearly all mammal parents extensively lick their offspring's faces?
- LargoLasskhyfv 3y agoBut they lick each other.