Latrine (animal)

Animal latrines (latrine areas,animal toilets, defecation sites) are places where wildlife animals habitually defecate and urinate. Many kinds of animals are highly specific in this respect and have stereotyped routines, including approach and departure. Many of them have communal, i.e., shared latrines.

Animals with communal latrines include raccoons, Eurasian badgers,elephants,deer,antelopes,horses, and dicynodonts (a 240-million-year-old site is the "world's oldest public toilet").

A regularly used toilet area or dunghill, created by many mammals, such as hyraxes or moles, is also called a midden.

Some lizards, such as yakka skinks (Egernia rugosa) and thorny devils use dedicated defecation sites.

European rabbits may deposit their pellets both randomly over the range and at communal latrine sites.

Middens and other types of defecation sites may serve as territorial markers. Elaborate "dungpile rituals" are reported for adult stallions, and deer bucks, which are thought to serve for confrontation avoidance. In contrast, female and young animals exhibit no such behavior.

Dedicated defecation sites are thought to be the result of sanitation-driven behavior. For example, spider mite Stigmaeopsis miscanthi constructs woven nests, and nest members defecate at only one site inside the nest. Dedicated latrine areas observed by free-roaming horses mean that grazing area is kept parasite-free. Even stabled horses seem to have vestiges of such behavior.

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