h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well done for an informative and amusing article which I really enjoyed reading. Thanks!

A few years ago, my hubby attended an Open University geology field trip ago around a quarry. One of the students, picked up a rock and licked it to see if it tasted chalky, only to be told it was a fossilised "turd"! Apparently, his face was a picture!

I found my first poo about 8 years ago while looking for fools gold. Still got it, doesn't smell bad, odd really.
Maybe in 10my from now someone will start collecting ours... maybe not.

Thanks Gwennie, I'll have to squeeze out a few more nuggets on palaeontology soon. Love Grape.

I look forward to those squeezed nuggets and hope you don't get writer's blockage!

Going through the motions....with a little spade

Not only does h2g2 have a whole forum on w*****g but heres one devoted to s**t - albeit 1,000,000,000,000,000 years old.

A turd is aturd nonetheless.

Keep up the good work turd-gatherers!

I'm proud to say that my great-great-great-grandfather (I can't remember the name offhand, it might be Mansfield Parkins) was the first person to identify fossil poo for what it really is.

Another amusing story about him: He visited an Italian Roman Catholic church which was famous for having a pool of blood near the altar where a martyr had been murdered, which never dried up. It was a regular pilgrim's destination. When he was shown it, he knelt down, dipped his finger in the 'blood', and tasted it. He announced, 'That's not blood, it's bat's urine.'

You can see a collection of his poos at Lyme Regis. Well, not HIS poos, but his collection of fossil poos. You know what I mean.

I'll remember to add that this poo collection to my list of "places to visit".

Do you know what the Catholic church's reaction was to having bat urine instead of martyr's blood at the altar?

He was hastily shown the way out

On another occasion he identified a 'martyr's bones' as bones of a goat!

Was he excommunicated?

No, but I don't think they invited him back!

A strange puddle on the floor and he tastes it!

It is bad enough that it ended up being bat urine (and how did he know what *that* tasted like!) but what would have been the effect on him if it had been magical martyr blood?

Question to any bat experts (what are you called is another question). If bats hang upside down in one place (as in the church mentioned in this thread) how does their urine get to be a puddle on the floor. I would imagine that it would run down their bodies and soak into their fur (horrible picture I know).

Anyone who says that bats urinate out of the top of their heads will not be believed!

They can perch upright, but hang upside down while they're asleep 'cos it's easier and saves energy. (Like hanging up a coat. You wouldn't try to stand a coat up when you're not wearing it, would you?) Or something like that.

I'm desperately trying to remember what bat experts are called but can't remember. Come to think of it I probably never knew, and my mind is just trying to be clever.

Does anyone know what kind of bats they were?