New York, June 1 (IANS) This may read bizarre but gold is not the only thing that glitters; even poop can sparkle!
Bats who eat a lot of insects deliver a ‘sparkling’ effect in their faeces, and the effect is visible because of their diet.
Insects’ exoskeletons, or hard outer coverings, are made of chitin.
Chitin – like plant cellulose – is difficult to digest and passes through a gut relatively unchanged.
Scientists discovered the “sparkle” by collecting and dissecting bat ordure.
So what actually are bats eating?
Big brown bats in Indiana in the US eat primarily scarab beetles, cucumber beetles, stink bugs and leafhoppers.
Biting flies are not a large part of North American bats’ diet though.
In Texas, bats do real good to the economy by eating corn earworms and cotton bollworms.
According to media reports, a colony of 150 bats can generate about 882,000 sparkle turds per year – containing 1.3 million insects that are major pests of agriculture.
