Feces

Feces (or faeces) are the solid or semisolid remains of food that could not be digested in the small intestine.

The gastrointestinal tract (digestive tract, alimentary canal, digestion tract, GI tract, GIT) is an organ system within humans and other animals which takes in food, digests it to extract and absorb energy and nutrients, and expels the remaining waste as feces.

Bacteria in the large intestine further break down the material.

Water is absorbed here and the remaining waste material is stored as feces before being removed by defecation.

It can also be burned as fuel or dried and used for construction.

Dry dung fuel (or dry manure fuel) is animal feces that has been dried in order to be used as a fuel source.

Feces are discharged through the anus or cloaca during defecation.

Its function is to control the expulsion of feces, unwanted semi-solid matter produced during digestion, which, depending on the type of animal, may include: matter which the animal cannot digest, such as bones; food material after all the nutrients have been extracted, for example cellulose or lignin; ingested matter which would be toxic if it remained in the digestive tract; and dead or excess gut bacteria and other endosymbionts.

It can also be burned as fuel or dried and used for construction.

Wattle and daub is a composite building method used for making walls and buildings, in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called wattle is daubed with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung and straw.

In the case of human feces, fecal transplants or fecal bacteriotherapy are in use.

Human feces have similarities to feces of other animals and vary significantly in appearance (i.e. size, color, texture), according to the state of the diet, digestive system and general health.

Feces contain a relatively small amount of metabolic waste products such as bacterially altered bilirubin, and the dead epithelial cells from the lining of the gut.

Its subsequent breakdown products, such as stercobilin, cause the brown color of faeces.

Feces are discharged through the anus or cloaca during defecation.

All amphibians, reptiles, and a few mammals (monotremes, tenrecs, golden moles, and marsupial moles) have this orifice, from which they excrete both urine and feces; this is in contrast to most placental mammals, which have two or three separate orifices for evacuation.

Many organisms feed on feces, from bacteria to fungi to insects such as dung beetles, who can sense odors from long distances.

Dung beetles are beetles that feed on faeces (dung).

Feces (or faeces) are the solid or semisolid remains of food that could not be digested in the small intestine.

Examples (with non-American letter in bold): aeon, anaemia, anaesthesia, caecum, caesium, coeliac, diarrhoea, encyclopaedia, faeces, foetal, gynaecology, haemoglobin, haemophilia, leukaemia, oesophagus, oestrogen, orthopaedic, palaeontology, paediatric, paedophile.

This process is known as coprophagia, and occurs in various animal species such as young elephants eating the feces of their mothers to gain essential gut flora, or by other animals such as dogs, rabbits, and monkeys.

Coprophagia or coprophagy is the consumption of feces.

This process is known as coprophagia, and occurs in various animal species such as young elephants eating the feces of their mothers to gain essential gut flora, or by other animals such as dogs, rabbits, and monkeys. Gut flora produces compounds such as indole, skatole, and thiols (sulfur-containing compounds), as well as the inorganic gas hydrogen sulfide.

As a consequence of their abundance in the intestine, bacteria also make up to 60% of the dry mass of feces.

Gut flora produces compounds such as indole, skatole, and thiols (sulfur-containing compounds), as well as the inorganic gas hydrogen sulfide.

It occurs naturally in feces (it is produced from tryptophan in the mammalian digestive tract) and coal tar and has a strong fecal odor.

Gut flora produces compounds such as indole, skatole, and thiols (sulfur-containing compounds), as well as the inorganic gas hydrogen sulfide.

It occurs naturally in human feces and has an intense fecal odor.

Feces and urine, which reflect ultraviolet light, are important to raptors such as kestrels, who can see the near ultraviolet and thus find their prey by their middens and territorial markers.

A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, sherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation.

Organisms that subsist on dead organic matter or detritus are known as detritivores, and play an important role in ecosystems by recycling organic matter back into a simpler form that plants and other autotrophs may absorb once again.

Detritus typically includes the bodies or fragments of bodies of dead organisms, and fecal material.

Organisms that subsist on dead organic matter or detritus are known as detritivores, and play an important role in ecosystems by recycling organic matter back into a simpler form that plants and other autotrophs may absorb once again.

Detritivores, also known as detrivores, detritophages, detritus feeders, or detritus eaters, are heterotrophs that obtain nutrients by consuming detritus (decomposing plant and animal parts as well as faeces).

The feces of animals often are used as fertilizer; see guano and manure.

Guano (via Spanish from wanu) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds and bats.

The feces of animals often are used as fertilizer; see guano and manure.

Most manure consists of animal feces; other sources include compost and green manure.

Feces contain a relatively small amount of metabolic waste products such as bacterially altered bilirubin, and the dead epithelial cells from the lining of the gut.

In many animals, the urine is the main route of excretion for such wastes; in some, the feces is.

A coprolite is fossilized feces and is classified as a trace fossil.

A coprolite (also known as a coprolith) is fossilized feces.

These are the same compounds responsible for the odor of flatulence.

For example, in one study of the faeces of nine adults, only five of the samples contained archaea capable of producing methane.

A coprolite is fossilized feces and is classified as a trace fossil.

Fossils may also consist of the marks left behind by the organism while it was alive, such as animal tracks or feces (coprolites).

Seeds also may be found in feces.

The distinctive odor of feces is due to bacterial action.

Often these techniques are designed for specific specimens; for example, a sputum sample will be treated to identify organisms that cause pneumonia, while stool specimens are cultured on selective media to identify organisms that cause diarrhoea, while preventing growth of non-pathogenic bacteria.