this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2025
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It's probably a gut microbe thing that aids in processing food more efficiently, right? Koalas eat their own shit as well - I think their mothers even feed them shit, iirc. I think it's not uncommon among herbivores.
They have two kinds of poop: the little cocoa pebble ones, and soft wet ones that look like grape clusters, called cecotropes. The cecotropes are partly digested, and they eat them to extract more nutrients the second go round.
Ah, fascinating! We had a bunny growing up and I always remember her eating the little pebbly poop, but I'm probably just remembering wrong.
Some can't get enough and want it all
So it's like chewing cud, except it's multiple passes of the same stomach instead of different stomachs.
They don't have the mass to have multiple stomachs like a proper cow
I always knew shit eating grins were misunderstood. They were just happy about being efficient.
You could say they were coprophappygia?
Yes and no. Chewing cud only involves the first stomach for cows, since they just need to regurgitate it. It doesn't pass to the later stomachs until the grass is sufficiently broken down
A fact well known to everyone who read Watership Down as a child.
Yup. Guinea pigs also need to eat their own poop for normal digestion.
The koala thing is slightly different, at birth they can't digest eucalyptus leaves. The necessary gut bacteria is passed down from mother to child through coprophagy.
Bunnies and guinea pigs just eat their poop to ensure complete digestion.