| 1 | [[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gold_poop.jpg]] |
| 2 | |
| 3 | ->'''Leela:''' They're beautiful.\ |
| 4 | '''Zoidberg:''' Ew... you're touching them. |
| 5 | -->-- ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' |
| 6 | |
| 7 | "One man's crap is another man's treasure" taken a little too literally. Many [[IndexOfFictionalCreatures fictional creatures]] have various biological functions which produce some sort of waste or other material (i.e. spit, tears, urine, fecal matter, vomit, [[http://xkcd.com/1148/ the list goes on]]). Most of the time these wastes are treated like, well, waste, and disposed of accordingly. Most of the time. But for those lifeforms who won the SuperpowerLottery, their various waste products, fecal or otherwise, are like gold to other species (or [[ElementsDoNotWorkThatWay literally]] ''are'' [[ArtisticLicenseNuclearPhysics gold]]). |
| 8 | |
| 9 | The reason why the species itself doesn't find this material valuable is that it may be, [[{{Pun}} ahem]], [[WorthlessYellowRocks common as crap]] on its homeworld. Face it, it may be valuable, but it's still poo, vomit, etc. Oftentimes a facet of BizarreAlienBiology, and may lead to MonsterOrganTrafficking if someone gets a little too wealth-hungry. Compare PoopingFood, where the waste turns out to be perfectly edible food. If it has healing properties, see FantasticMedicinalBodilyProduct. If it's waste, but still manages to save someone, see RevoltingRescue. BodyToJewel is a specific SubTrope that covers bodily fluids being turned into {{Mineral MacGuffin}}s. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | TruthInTelevision if you consider the useful and unusual applications of real-life animal droppings. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | Warning: High concentration of '''spoilers''' due to this trope oftentimes being in TheReveal, and always full of {{Squick}}. Don't confuse with PolishTheTurd; that trope is about making ''metaphorical'' "turds" more appealing, at least superficially. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | ---- |
| 16 | !!Examples: |
| 17 | |
| 18 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 19 | |
| 20 | [[folder:Advertising]] |
| 21 | * The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbYWhdLO43Q commercial]] for Squatty Potty features a unicorn pooping rainbow ice cream. |
| 22 | ** A later [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPLbyk7c-KM commercial]] features a dragon pooping literal gold. |
| 23 | [[/folder]] |
| 24 | |
| 25 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 26 | * One "What If?" AU-story from ''Manga/CrayonShinChan'' depicts Himawari, Shin-Chan's kid sister and the baby of the Nohara family, as a DoorstopBaby which the Noharas adopt after finding out she had the ability to defecate gold. The Noharas becomes insanely rich in the process, but trouble follows when Shin-Chan (thanks to his LooseLips as usual) spills the secret behind their wealth to the public. Himawari ends up kidnapped, with the Noharas getting caught as well after a botched rescue mission, but when Himawari is made to poop, she ends up defecating regular feces. Then, aliens from the Sunflower planet comes to their rescue, saving the Noharas and revealing Himawari to be a member of their race (''himawari'' being Japanese for "sunflower"), whose babies poop gold ''only'' in the first nine months of their lives. The aliens offer a 1-ton golden poop statue worth ''billions'' to the Noharas in exchange for Himawari, but to their surprise, the Noharas [[KeepTheReward reject the gold, preferring to keep Himawari after they've grown attached to the baby]]. |
| 27 | * The ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' Platinum Sukamon (which itself is poop) has an attack called "Rare Metal Poop." |
| 28 | * A humble cave rich in nitrogen compounds accumulated from bat guano takes center stage in ''Manga/DrStone''. Guano is a rich source of saltpeter, a vital ingredient in the production of black powder. Liquid from the cave is also a source of nitric acid, which when combined with alcohol can be used to reverse the [[TakenForGranite petrification]] that has affected every human on Earth. Whoever controls the cave controls the means to recruit manpower and produce gunpowder, and with these advantages the means to rule the Stone World. |
| 29 | * In ''Literature/KyoKaraMaoh'', Wolfram is seen painting with a foul-smelling paint made from the excrement of Bear-Bees. He doesn't enjoy the smell (even wearing a nose plug), but uses it because it's supposedly the finest kind of paint money can buy in his world. |
| 30 | * In ''Manga/MonsterMusume'', even unfertilized [[HarpingOnAboutHarpies Harpy]] eggs go for 3 '''million''' yen on the black market. There's also apparently a market for shed Lamia skin and [[SpiderPeople Arachne]] silk. |
| 31 | * In the final season of ''Anime/OjamajoDoremi'', Hana-chan becomes friends with a white elephant named Pao-chan. Majo Rika only agrees to let it stay with her when she finds out that it literally poops out money (that is, the marble-like balls that power apprentices' wands and are used as currency). |
| 32 | * ''Manga/ThoseWhoHuntElves'' has an episode where the humans stranded in a fantasy world desperately search for the world's equivalent of toilet paper. They finally find some precious, lilac-scented paper rolls... only to soon discover that one of the local fauna ''craps them out''. |
| 33 | ** Then they adopt one specimen of those species, and make it [[RidiculouslyCuteCritter the new team mascot]]. |
| 34 | * ''Manga/{{Toriko}}''. Some of the best ingredients have rather odd sources: |
| 35 | ** The last ingredient needed to recreate Century Soup perfectly [[spoiler:is Wall Penguin saliva.]] |
| 36 | ** Mellow Cola, the best cola in existence, is the Salamander Sphinx's [[spoiler:tears]]. |
| 37 | ** The videogame ''Toriko: Gourmet Monsters'' reveals that one of the most delicious mushrooms ever, the Big Bang Mushroom, grows exclusively on [[spoiler:the extinct Death Gores. Yes, it's basically Athlete's Foot.]] |
| 38 | ** The Billion Bird's unfertilized eggs, laid only when the Bird takes flight in joy, are incredibly delicious and contain so many nutrients that they promote instant hair and nail growth. |
| 39 | ** When the Tonyudo is frightened into submission, it cries tears of delicious soy milk. |
| 40 | ** The legendary Soup PAIR [[spoiler:is Monkey King Bambina's testicles. PAIR used to be produced by the planet itself, but Bambina's ancestor drank it all by himself down to the last drop, and the soup's essence became infused in the bodies of the Ballboons.]] [[spoiler:He can even use his poop as a form of transportation.]] |
| 41 | * In the manga ''Nukenai Seiken-chan'', Imperials[[note]]{{Living Weapon}}s which can shapeshift from a talking sword into a woman[[/note]] have the ability to eat food, which is then converted into mana. Excess mana is very literally excreted as mana crystals, which are worth a ''lot'' of money. As the Imperial protagonists like to eat until they get [[BalloonBelly Balloon Bellies]], this allows them to pay their human companion Tatara back for how much they spend. It's even a plot point in the 40th chapter; when the dwarf smith Dekka demands one million zeni as payment for Tatara's new magical smithing hammer, the three gorging-bloated Imperials quickly retreat to the nearest toilet and then present Dekka with the resultant crystals, which she happily accepts to pay the debt. |
| 42 | [[/folder]] |
| 43 | |
| 44 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 45 | * Parodied in ''ComicBook/{{Cattivik}}'', when a Russian scientist tries to prove that gold can be naturally produced by poop thanks to a tiny intestinal germ carrying a gold fragment called "Bacyllococcus Aureus". The following experiment succeeded, but only because he accidentally sucked Cattivik's supply of gold dust along with the sewage. |
| 46 | * One issue of Mexican comic strip ''Franchise/ElSantos'' had the main character entering a diamond mine, where he finds that diamonds are actually hardened bat poop. (Yes, it's [[GrossoutShow that kind of comic]]). |
| 47 | * ''ComicBook/TheFabulousFurryFreakBrothers'': |
| 48 | ** There's a convoluted tale in which Fat Freddy's cat was kidnapped by aliens whose ship had run out of fuel. Terrified, the cat crapped onto the deck... |
| 49 | ** Also an even more convoluted one in which Fat Freddy's aunt, a witch, turned her husband into a parakeet. Eventually he's turned back, then turns her into a chicken who actually does have solid gold poop (but her eggs are only Grade B, medium). |
| 50 | * In the first issue of ''Sultry Teenage Super-Foxes'', the US military develops an alchemy machine that literally turns dog waste into gold. [[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall Linkara]] goes into an angry rant when the scientists say [[CutLexLuthorACheck their funding got cut because the government doesn't think the machine is practical]]. |
| 51 | * In ''ComicBook/Transformers2019'', it turns out that the poop of the batlike Probat catalyzes into potent energon crystals when burned. When the Cybertronion ambassador Deathsaurus learns this, he decides to torch their cities and take all the resulting energon for himself. |
| 52 | * The Grumpy Transmuter from Bluxte in the French comic book series ''ComicBook/{{Valerian}}'' is a variation. It's a rare, bad-mannered little alien critter with the power to convert energy into matter. As a consequence, you can feed it a tiny object, and it will immediately crap out dozens of exact replicas of said object as long as it has the energy to do so (it runs out fairly quickly, though, and must be recharged). Obviously, it's typically used to replicate valuable items like diamonds and other gemstones. Fittingly enough, the creature's tail looks like a row of pearls on a thread. |
| 53 | [[/folder]] |
| 54 | |
| 55 | [[folder:Comic Strips]] |
| 56 | * The very first ''ComicStrip/ThePhantom'' story had the real-life example of ambergris as a treasure being fought over. Diana has found a huge deposit of ambergris and wants to gather it to fund a children's hospital, while the Singh Brotherhood wants to get their hands on it to enrich themselves. |
| 57 | [[/folder]] |
| 58 | |
| 59 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 60 | * In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' fanfiction ''The Rugrats' Crazy Fairy-Tale'', the made-up character [[Franchise/PeterPan Tinker]]-Dil produces magical snot. |
| 61 | [[/folder]] |
| 62 | |
| 63 | [[folder:Film -- Animated]] |
| 64 | * In ''WesternAnimation/TheAntBully'', what appears at first glance to be a [[GRatedDrug G-rated version of beer]] is actually something excreted from the heiny of giant bugs. |
| 65 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Antz}}'' also had ants drinking aphid beer. |
| 66 | * Non-poop example: in ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut'', Bing Bong cries candy. |
| 67 | * ''WesternAnimation/PussInBoots'' features a goose that lays golden eggs, if eggs count. Oddly, Kitty describes her as a "gold pooper" even though eggs are not poop, and she lays eggs despite looking like a gosling. |
| 68 | [[/folder]] |
| 69 | |
| 70 | [[folder:Film -- Live-Action]] |
| 71 | * In the second ''Film/AceVentura'' movie, the motivation for the bad guys to want to get rid of the peaceful tribe is to get their hands on their guano-rich lands, thereby giving them a chance to make a killing on the fertilizer market. |
| 72 | * There is an infamous scene in ''Film/TheHolyMountain'' where the Alchemist has the Thief defecate into a glass bowl. Which, through a complex process that uses the Thief's own sweat, is burned, boiled and converted into ''solid gold.'' |
| 73 | * In ''{{Film/Hop}}'', E.B. the Easter Bunny is shown to poop jelly beans. |
| 74 | * ''Film/MadMaxBeyondThunderdome'': Bartertown is fueled by methane, a byproduct of fecal decomposition. This choice of fuels was clearly made just for the arguments that could result. |
| 75 | ** Mad Max has it explained to him by Aunty Entity and her Mook: |
| 76 | -->'''Mad Max:''' What's the energy source...oil, natural gas? |
| 77 | -->'''Aunty Entity:''' Pigs. |
| 78 | -->'''Mad Max:''' Pigs? You mean pigs like those? Bullshit. |
| 79 | -->'''Aunty Entity:''' Pigshit. |
| 80 | -->'''Mad Max:''' What? |
| 81 | -->'''The Collector:''' Pig shit. The lights, the machines, the vehicles all run on a high-powered gas called methane. Methane comes from pig shit. |
| 82 | ** And: |
| 83 | -->'''Master:''' Me order! Me Master, me run Bartertown! |
| 84 | -->'''Mad Max:''' Sure, that's why you live in shit. |
| 85 | -->'''Master:''' NOT SHIT! Energy! |
| 86 | * The {{Creator/Disney}} movie ''Film/TheMillionDollarDuck'', based on Aesop's fable about the goose that laid the golden eggs. |
| 87 | * In ''Film/PacificRim'', a black market has emerged around harvesting the bodies of dead {{Kaiju}}, each part with various purposes. A shifty salesman sells kaiju bone powder as an male potency drug, and his boss claims that one cubic meter of kaiju poop contains enough phosphorus to fertilize an entire field. |
| 88 | * At the end of ''Film/PetesDragon1977'', having seen his boss's plans to chop Elliott into dragon-based cure-alls fail spectacularly, the BigBad's crony resorts to pestering him for shed scales, fallen-out hair, etc. |
| 89 | * ''Film/WillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory'' has the geese that lay golden ''chocolate'' eggs. |
| 90 | * ''Film/Wishmaster2EvilNeverDies'' contains a horror version of this trope. During the pandemonium at the casino, the Djinn tosses a pair of dice on to the craps table, and then tells the woman watching that she has just "crapped out" before moving on. The woman then starts shitting coins and can't stop; continuing to crap currency until she dies. |
| 91 | [[/folder]] |
| 92 | |
| 93 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 94 | * ''Literature/The13Clocks'' had a woman who cried gemstomes whenever she was sad. Unfortunately by the time the heroes came around, her tears dried up completely due to people telling her sad stories so much. However... she also cries gems when she's laughing hard [[spoiler:only for them to turn back into water after two weeks. Long enough for the heroes' purpose.]] |
| 95 | * Not exactly ''valuable,'' but useful at least: in ''Literature/AlienInASmallTown,'' the [[SiliconBasedLife silicon-based]] Jan excrete solid blocks of silicon oxide... which make perfectly good bricks, and they use them as such. |
| 96 | * In ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'', the secret alien spaceship held inside Area 51 is... an Andalite cess pit. All toilet waste on board Andalite spaceships gets put into a capsule and fired into a star. This one apparently missed, crashed on earth, and has been a highly guarded secret ever since. The humans are blissfully unaware, however. |
| 97 | * In the ''Literature/ApprenticeAdept'' series, Unicorn dung is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin just that]]. However, when used as fertilizer, any plant grown in it gains magical attributes (like a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arisaema_triphyllum Jack-In-The-Pulpit]] that preaches). |
| 98 | * Part of the {{anvilicious}} story of ''As The World Burns'' (50 Things You Can Do To Stay in Denial) involved an invasion of [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot gold-crapping alien robots]]. |
| 99 | * In ''Literature/TheBadPlace'', Frank sometimes shifts to a world covered in gigantic worker bugs. It turns out the bugs have been genetically engineered to eat dirt from mines and excrete red diamonds. |
| 100 | -->'''Bobby''': Bug shit. |
| 101 | * In Creator/DamonKnight's short story "The Big Pat Boom" (1963), alien visitors to Earth become extremely interested in the artistic value of cow pies, resulting in the eponymous phenomenon. Cow pats become enormously valuable, with collectors paying huge amounts for whirls, swirls and "double whorls". When the boom ends, dealers in cowpies are left with a pile of, well...yeah. |
| 102 | * In ''Literature/BridgeOfBirds'', Li Kao cons Miser Shen into believing that he owns a goat that poops gold coins (the gold coins are actually fake ones hidden in fish heads and mangoes fed to the goat) so that Shen will spend all night trying to get as much gold out of it as he can, leaving Li Kao free to rob his residence. |
| 103 | * The novel ''Brightness Falls from the Air'' by James Tiptree, Jr. Tiny, pixie-like beings are tortured to death for their tears, which have a valuable property, either narcotic or aphrodisiac. Stars Tears turn up in at least two other stories. |
| 104 | * The novel ''Literature/Camelot30K'' has the keracks, one-eyed centimeters-long prawns (with an {{Expy}} Myth/{{Arthurian|Legend}} society) who have around a hundred orifices... each of which excretes an element in the periodic table. |
| 105 | * In ''[[Literature/CircleOfMagic Shatterglass]]'' by Creator/TamoraPierce, a magical accident results in the creation of a small living glass dragon named Chime, who likes to eat glass-coloring agents and then pukes up (or, more politely, breathes out) pretty colored glass shapes. Her owner makes necklaces out of them. She also makes little marble-looking whorls which are her puke, molded glass flames are her attempt to breathe fire like a normal dragon, a spray of needles which is how she actually defends herself, and lumpy glass rounds that are her dung. |
| 106 | * ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'': In ''A Civil Campaign'', there's an example in "butterbugs". Miles' brother, Mark and his MadScientist employee genetically engineer these beetles that spit up a substance that is sort of a bland butter, but tastes delicious when given some flavoring and the characters remark on the disconnect between how good it tastes and how disgusting its origin is (not helped by Mark serving it to people before telling them what they are eating, or the fact that the butterbugs are the ugliest insect in existence). |
| 107 | * In ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'', the Old Gods pissed on the desert and created mescaline, at least according to [[TheMentor Cort]]. |
| 108 | * Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' |
| 109 | ** Harry King made his fortune collecting and sifting trash for useful items -- including white dog poo, which is a valuable resource in the tanning industry. This is essentially TruthInTelevision, even the bit about the dog poo. He's also got the urine market cornered: vital for tanning, etc. Not for nothing is he known as "King of the Golden River". |
| 110 | ** Salamanders are small lizard-like animals that absorb sunlight, deriving nutrients from its octarine wavelengths. Other wavelengths of light are excreted in the normal way, making them useful for illumination or ([[BringMyBrownPants if startled]]), as flashbulbs for iconographers. |
| 111 | * In ''Literature/DragonBones'', the eponymous dragon bones have magical properties that make them very valuable to humans. To dragons, they're rather useless[[note]]Well, except for the whole "keeping them from collapsing into a bag of meat" thing, what we ''really'' mean is that the bones of a ''dead'' dragon are useless to ''other'' dragons[[/note]]. Dragons eat their dead, mostly for the purpose of preventing stupid humans from doing stupid things with the bones - it doesn't seem to have an effect on them. |
| 112 | * The spice melange in ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'' is formed via [[spoiler:the excretions of the sand trout, larval {{Sand Worm}}s, mixed with water]]. This is actually an extremely important plot point, since [[spoiler:the terraforming of Arrakis in the first three books drives the sandworms to extinction.]] |
| 113 | * ''Literature/{{Fablehaven}}'' has Viola, the giant cow who takes up the entire barn and is still growing. When Seth asks what they do with her cow patties, Grandma says they use it as fertilizer, which enables them to grow multiple harvests in one year and grow plants that shouldn't even be in the climate. Tanu, the potion master, mentions offhand that anything from Viola could be used for magic, be it [[BreadEggsMilkSquick hair, blood, milk, or dung]]. |
| 114 | * In ''Literature/FaeriesOfDreamdark: Blackbringer'', copper, gold, silver, and a bunch of other metals were actually dragons' poop. |
| 115 | * For some reason, dragon dung is needed in Creator/MercedesLackey's ''Literature/DragonJousters'' series. |
| 116 | * Among the freaky purpose-built creatures designed by Gaea in Creator/JohnVarley's ''Literature/GaeaTrilogy'', ''Titan'', ''Wizard'', and ''Demon'', were some that "excreted" useful finished goods, such as road-building critters that shat asphalt[[note]]if you've ever smelled fresh asphalt, you will find this ''entirely'' believable[[/note]], or living film-processors that ingested raw filmstock and excreted finished prints. |
| 117 | * ''Literature/HarryPotter'': |
| 118 | ** Due to being Hogwarts' Caretaker and living right next to the Forbidden Forest, Hagrid has access to all sorts of magical creatures, as well as their waste products. Unicorn hair, for example, is used in wands and potions. Hagrid uses the unicorn tail hair he finds caught in branches in the forest as thread and binding for bandages. |
| 119 | ** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bezoar Bezoar stones]] are foreign masses that have gestated in the gastrointestinal tract. They were highly prized as a protection against poisons until their effectiveness was debunked. In ''Literature/HarryPotter'' it turns out they only work against ''magic'' poisons. |
| 120 | ** On the more "normal" side of this, wizards generally use fertilizer made from dragon or [[https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Mooncalf mooncalf]] manure. In at least the latter case, it explicitly has magical properties. |
| 121 | * ''[[Literature/HumanxCommonwealth Nor Crystal Tears]]'' references this trope (as a TitleDrop), but doesn't actually use it. |
| 122 | * If eggs count, ''Literature/JackAndTheBeanstalk'' features a goose that lays golden eggs. |
| 123 | * The alien Nusurans in ''Literature/JanitorsOfThePostapocalypse'' have particular digestive systems and excrete a silica crystal once a year. The largest and highest-quality crystals require a high calorie diet and strong laxatives. They and other sapient races hold these as very useful in storing data on computers. This also means that outbreaks of Nusuran genital lice are a matter of ''extreme'' concern on places like the bridge of a ship - the lice are tenacious and can completely destroy a lot of essential systems. |
| 124 | * In ''[[Literature/JoesWorld The Philosophical Strangler]]'' by Eric Flint, [[NoodleIncident mention is made]] of how miserable the lives of dwarves are, including their being used in some horrible death-camp experiment run by TheEmpire's top scientific and magical experts. It isn't until the prequel ''Forward The Mage'' that it is revealed there exists a magic scroll that turns "base materials" into gold which only works if a dwarf takes a dump on it, since there is no material more "base" than dwarf shit. When The Empire gets a second-hand report about this discovery, they start gathering dwarves, chaining them to toilets, and experimenting on the poor little buggers to find out how to replicate this (unaware that said scroll is required). When someone brings up that it's gold, yes, but it's made from dwarf shit, the guy that recommends this plot states that gold may as well be dwarf shit, for how many dwarf slaves that they send to the mines. |
| 125 | * In ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest'' according to the horse-dragon Yo Lung, a few droplets of a dragon's urine can turn grass into a longevity-granting mushroom or turn a whole pond of carps into dragons. |
| 126 | * Aahz mentions a literal example in ''[[Literature/MythAdventures Myth-ion Improbable]]'': a solid gold deer dropping he'd seen for sale at the Bazaar. He'd also seen a piece of gold elk antler, and cites a number of other stories (possibly apocryphal) of creatures that laid, shed, or excreted gold. |
| 127 | * Shed [[OurDragonsAreDifferent "dragon"]] scales are extremely valuable in ''Literature/TheNameOfTheWind'' due to containing rare organic iron compounds. |
| 128 | * A BodyHorror example occurs in ''Orion Arm'', the second book of Creator/JulianMay's ''Rampart Worlds'' trilogy. In a CrapsackWorld future run by [[MegaCorp The Hundred Concerns]] criminals are imprisoned in the so called Coventry prison towns. Tourism is allowed (although your insurance is invalidated) and one club displays an alien lifeform that licks silver nitrate deposits for nourishment, only to crap out the silver in the form of a large sphere. It turns out that the alien lifeform didn't start out that way, it's a human convict that fell afoul of the gangs that run the prison and was transformed using a sample of DNA from a real alien. |
| 129 | * The Otto Stahl books by Leo Kessler begin with the VillainProtagonist being given a literal 'shit detail' where he empties latrines from the Seigfried Line across the French border as an insult. Otto finds a way to turn a profit by selling this ready-made fertilizer to French farmers in exchange for food he can sell on the black market in Nazi Germany. |
| 130 | * In "Paté De Foie Gras," a short story by Creator/IsaacAsimov, government scientists stumble upon a mutant goose that lays golden eggs. The story purports to be true, and written as fiction for national security reasons. It's also a puzzle story - the scientists are looking for a way to get the goose to reproduce so they can perform more invasive tests. There's a way to do so, and finding it is literally [[FigureItOutYourself left as an exercise for the reader]]. |
| 131 | * ''Literature/PerdidoStreetStation'': |
| 132 | ** There's a new drug going around New Crobuzon called dreamshit. Isaac feeds it to a strange caterpillar he has because it's the only thing it's interested in eating. It turns out that [[spoiler:dreamshit is made from the secretions of captive adult slake-moths, which they use to feed their larvae. Slake-moths are [[GiantSpider huge]], [[IntangibleMan phasing]], [[BrainFood thought-eating]] monsters, and raw dreamshit is digested souls ...and Isaac's caterpillar grows up]]. Though the dreamshit Isaac feeds the caterpillar is cut with various other things, so it's not as pure as [[spoiler:"milk" from an adult moth. This is stated to warp the baby somewhat.]] |
| 133 | ** Also, the insect-headed khepri craft ornate sculptures and architecture from the pliable goop they exude after consuming colorberries. |
| 134 | * Seen quite a bit over the [[LongRunner long run]] of ''Literature/PerryRhodan'', unsurprisingly so given the wide variety of alien life encountered. Among the more conspicuous uses for byproducts of some alien metabolism or other have been nigh-invincible armor (produced by an almost literal HordeOfAlienLocusts) for the starships of ''another'' alien civilization and droplets of [[PureEnergy solidified psionic energy]] that could be used as-is to give anybody with even a hint of latent talent temporary {{psychic powers}}. |
| 135 | * The ''Literature/{{Retief}}'' short story "Internal Affairs" features a gigantic lifeform whose waste products include rubies and emeralds. |
| 136 | * The plot behind ''A Second Chance at Eden'', a prequel to ''[[Literature/TheNightsDawnTrilogy The Reality Dysfunction]]'' was set into motion when the living habitat [[spoiler:was found to have been filtering and stockpiling precious metals as a byproduct of its asteroid mining/eating. The conspirators had planned to steal as much as they could by replacing a spaceship's parts with solid gold and platinum]]. |
| 137 | * The second ''Literature/SirAproposOfNothing'' book includes mention of the now-extinct Rockmuncher trolls, who consumed ordinary rock. When they ate rocks heavy with valuable ore, they literally shat gold. |
| 138 | * In ''[[Literature/TheShipWho The Ship Avenged]]'', Sainians produce "mouth rubies" that humans rebrand into "crown rubies". The result of a socially embarrassing gastric disorder that they hate to admit to, they're both amused and disgusted that humans so value what they regard as malodorous solidified drool. The rubies are almost always quite small, as generally Sainians with the disorder discard the stones soon after they form and can't normally be induced to let them grow, but Joat's tasked with moving some enormous ones and is told "Everything has its price." She knows they're real because they ''do'' smell, though to humans it's a pleasant musky scent. |
| 139 | * Mentioned in ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''. There is a common joke about Lord Tywin, that he shits gold (The Lannister family being golden haired, disgustingly wealthy and Tywin himself having gold flecked green eyes and often wearing gold plated armour) but [[spoiler:after his son Tyrion kills him on the privy and his vital functions... complete]], it turns out that "Lord Tywin Lannister did not, in the end, shit gold". |
| 140 | * In the Literature/{{Starfist}} novel ''Technokill'' by Dan Cragg, the alien birds swallow pebbles to help them digest foods, similar to prehistoric dinosaurs. When they excrete the stones, they have been pressurized into gemstones. Unfortunately, the rest of the waste is so toxic that it's impossible for humans to get close to them without serious physical harm. |
| 141 | * The ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' novel ''The Tears of the Singers'' by Melinda M. Snodgrass. The Singers are seal-like aliens who secrete valuable crystals at the time of their death. |
| 142 | * In the Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse: |
| 143 | ** Glitterstim spice, the FantasticDrug on which many a vast criminal fortune (including Jabba the Hutt's) has been built, is the "webbing" of a species of giant spiders that are only known to live in underground caves on the planet Kessel. The spiders use it to catch and prey on WillOWisp-like energy creatures that live in the same caves. |
| 144 | ** An insectoid race called the Vratix secrete a chemical critical to the manufacture of Bacta, which is used in the medical field. |
| 145 | ** ''Literature/LandoCalrissianAndTheStarcaveOfThonBoka'' features a race called the Oswaft, who [[SpaceWhale dwell exclusively in hard vacuum and look an awful lot like titanic manta rays]]. Their secretions are actually ''more'' valuable than gold; they can produce nearly any pure element or crystal on command, including ultra-rare gems of astonishing perfection and size. Naturally this attracts the baddies' attention. The Oswaft themselves take this about the same way as you would if a bunch of tiny sentient aliens showed in your bathroom to watch you poop, threatened you with death if you flushed, then went to war over the bowl. |
| 146 | * ''Literature/SwordArtOnline'': Kirito and Lizbeth go after a crystal dragon (which is not [[CrystalDragonJesus Jesus]]) in order to obtain a rare metal ore to forge Kirito's new sword. Turns out the dragon eats crystals, so the ore is simply a...recycled by-product...of its digestive processes. Lizbeth reacts accordingly. |
| 147 | * ''The Wishing-Table, the Gold-Ass, and the Cudgel in the Sack'', a FairyTale collected by Creator/TheBrothersGrimm, features a donkey that does poop ''and puke'' gold if you tell it to. |
| 148 | [[/folder]] |
| 149 | |
| 150 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 151 | * The [[BigCreepyCrawlies Hellbugs]] of ''Series/{{Defiance}}'' produce petrohol, a liquid fuel, after eating Gulanite. |
| 152 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': |
| 153 | ** In one episode, there was a fly-like species who traded for food. As the Doctor explained, "they feed off what others leave behind...From their...behind...if you see what I mean. Perfectly natural, they are flies!" |
| 154 | ** In the classic serial "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani The Caves of Androzani]]", the highly valuable life-extending drug spectrox is made from something produced by the bats dwelling in the titular caves. The exact nature of the substance is never explained; however, the antidote to spectrox toxaemia is the milk of the queen bat, which the Doctor uses to save Peri's life at the cost of his own. His HeroicSacrifice takes on a bit of fridge hilarity when you realise that the Fifth Doctor's last act was to ''milk a bat''. |
| 155 | * In ''Series/{{Farscape}}'', [[RayGun pulse weapon]] ammunition is somehow made from large tubers, which also have mind-enslaving effects for most people when they eat them... but not Hynerians like Rygel. Their digestive system converts the root into the explosive oil. The result: explosive urine. This from a species that also normally farts helium (the squeaky-voice gas) when they are nervous. |
| 156 | * In one episode of ''Series/RoundTheTwist'', Linda Twist meets a man who owns an ice-cream van, and discovers his secret; he keeps a boy in the back of his truck who can produce the most delicious ice-cream...out of his ''nose''. |
| 157 | * Subverted in ''Series/SeaQuestDSV''. Morale and supply officer Ben Krieg discovers beautiful glowing pellets on the sea bed, which he dubs "Krieglite" and immediately begins planning to market as gemstones. GoldFever sets in among quite a bit of the crew and Krieg and others have collected considerable supplies of the pellets to take back to land by the time the analysis from the science officer comes in: It's fish poop, the glow is bioluminescent and temporary, and when exposed to air it rapidly starts to decompose, with stinky consequences. |
| 158 | * ''Series/TheMagicians'' featured the world of Fillory in Season 2 and onwards where a local species of insects literally called "Gold-shitting Beetles" [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin do exactly as they're called.]]. Unfortunatelly they become endangered and later extinct due to [[TheMagicGoesAway magic failing which leaves the economy in serious danger.]] |
| 159 | [[/folder]] |
| 160 | |
| 161 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 162 | * Music/FlightOfTheConchords: And Albi began to cry dragon tears... Which as we all know, turn into jellybeans! |
| 163 | * In the ''Music/{{Koit}}'' song "Magical Piss", a man's pee can magically improve whatever it touches. |
| 164 | * One of the lyrics in [[Music/WeirdAlYankovic "Weird Al" Yankovic's]] song "C.N.R." has the following line regarding Charles Nelson Reilly: |
| 165 | -->He ate his own weight in coal, excreted diamonds every day. |
| 166 | [[/folder]] |
| 167 | |
| 168 | [[folder:Mythology]] |
| 169 | * OlderThanFeudalism: [[Literature/AesopsFables Aesop's fable]] about [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_goose_that_laid_the_golden_eggs the goose that laid the golden eggs.]] |
| 170 | * The ancient Aztecs called gold "shit of the gods". Makes at least somewhat sense. If the same source is correct, the Quechua (Inca) called gold "sweatdrops of the sun" and silver "tears of the moon." |
| 171 | * In Persian mythology, amber is the feces of a three-legged donkey demigod. |
| 172 | * Some myths have dragons weeping diamonds. |
| 173 | * In Myth/ChineseMythology, jade is petrified dragon semen. |
| 174 | * In some myths, the firebird (not the phoenix, although it does have healing tears) produced hundreds of high-quality pearls from its beak as it sang, usually letting them fall on poor people so they could sell them. |
| 175 | * In [[Myth/JapaneseMythology Japanese folklore]] when the gods favored a village they would shit gold in its fields and piss sake in its well. |
| 176 | * Literature/TheKalevala said that the Finnish hero Väinamöinen's tears turned into pearls. Also, when TheSampo was smashed in pieces, the pieces that sank into the sea became its riches, while the pieces that drifted ashore became riches of the land. |
| 177 | * Baltic mythology also suggests that amber is the tears of the sea-goddess Jurate, as well as bits and pieces from her home. Perkunas, the god of thunder, beat her and smashed her castle when he found out she was having an affair with a mortal fisherman. |
| 178 | * There is a fairy tale of a girl called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamonds_and_Toads "Diamonds and Toads,"]] whose mouth produced gemstones whenever she spoke. A prince or noble wants to marry her for this ability... until she takes a vow of silence. A similar fairy tale specifies that the girl gains this ability because she was kind to an old lady who turned out to be a fairy in disguise, [[SecretTestOfCharacter testing peoples' generosity.]] When her vain and avaricious sister learns how she gained this remarkable capability, she sets out to find the "old lady" herself, but her greed gets the better of her and she gives herself away. Having failed the fairy's test, she is instead enchanted to have toads and slugs fall from her lips when she speaks. Bet she learned to shut up fast. |
| 179 | * In the mythology of Seram, located in Indonesia, the princess Hainuwele was always retreating to a private place and coming back with jewelry, dishes, and other precious items. Some greedy people killed her to raid her private stash. They discovered only a privy, as she had been defecating the valuables. |
| 180 | * Freyja, the goddess of [[BreadEggsMilkSquick love, beauty, and death]] (ItMakesSenseInContext) in Myth/NorseMythology cries tears of red gold for her husband, Óðr, who is often [[WalkingTheEarth indisposed]]. |
| 181 | * There is a German fairy tale called "The Wishing-Table, the Gold-Ass, and the Cudgel in the Sack" of three brothers who do good deeds and are rewarded with magical items, which are stolen by a greedy innkeeper when the elder two show them off, and the youngest wins them back by using [[CarryABigStick his gift]] to beat the fear of God into the innkeeper. The second son's gift was a donkey that "produced gold coins from both ends" on command (the innkeeper swaps it out with an ordinary donkey, which when commanded to produce gold... produces something else). |
| 182 | * There's also a Charles Perrault's fairytale, Donkeyskin, which starts by talking about a similar donkey and how it was an entire kingdom's economic base. [[OhCrap He gets killed]], although how that affected the country is [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse never mentioned]]. |
| 183 | * Parodied in an Italian fairy tale: the main character's donkey can apparently shit golden coins, but only because he... hid them there before. However his two guillable friends really thinks that is a gold-pooping donkey and buy it for a high price. To add insult to injury, when they protest because the donkey wasn't magical at all, he chews them out for mistreating the beast and making it unable to produce more gold. Played straight by another fairy tail where an ogre owns, among various treasures, a gold-pooping donkey. |
| 184 | * In Harari folklore, spotted hyenas attack and eat wandering djinns on their nightly forays into the city, and supposedly excrete the inedible remains, which happen to be gemstones and gold, in their dens. |
| 185 | * In some stories of TheWildHunt, TheFairFolk will ask a human for help fixing a broken wheel or something. Afterwards they reward the person with something worthless, with animal feces being a particularly gross option. The key, however, is to keep it until morning, at which point it will turn into gold. |
| 186 | [[/folder]] |
| 187 | |
| 188 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 189 | * ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': |
| 190 | ** In the TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms setting, the gems known as "King's Tears" were said to be the crystallized tears of long dead wizard kings. Each one contained an image of the thing the king loved most. |
| 191 | ** And in regular D&D, bat guano is a regular component in the old mainstay [[PlayingWithFire Fireball]] spell. Almost certainly a reference to RealLife historical uses of guano in making gunpowder. |
| 192 | --> '''[[Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick Vaarsuvius]]''': [[Film/ApocalypseNow I love the smell of bat guano in the morning]]. |
| 193 | ** In ''UnearthedArcana'', if the goddess Berronar Truesilver comes upon a dwarven community in need, she may cut off one of her beard-braids for them, and it will turn to gold. |
| 194 | ** Monster Manual V introduces "Gem Scarabs", cat-sized beetles with iridescent gemstones set in their carapaces. The beetles use these to cast low-level spells, but they lose this power if slain. The gems are still valuable, however, so it's worth it to hunt the beetles to harvest them. |
| 195 | ** The second half of the game's namesake may count as well. Nearly every part of a dragon is valuable, from its hide, its bones, to many of its organs, and their bodily fluids are ingredients in various alchemical and magical processes. In First Edition AD&D, one method for destroying artifacts was to steep them in brain juices of Bahamut. |
| 196 | ** In 4[[superscript:th]] edition, the much-reviled rust monster sometimes has a gut full of ''residuum'', a magic-infused dust that is tremendously valuable in casting ritual spells and creating enchanted items. It's meant as an {{Anti Frustration Feature|s}} to dull the sting of watching your fabulously expensive magic weapons and armour turn into a bug's lunch. |
| 197 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' has the Beasts of Resplendent Liquid - a type of magical, immortal dinosaurs that ''eat opium and pee liquid heroin''. |
| 198 | ** The Beasts actually purify and excrete various substances, depending on the breed. Their original purpose was to be the ultimate pharmacologist's friend (and a precious few that produce other substances are still around). The heroin producers are simple the least rare and best-known. |
| 199 | ** A Lunar with Scorpion and Toad Mastery can excrete any drug or poison they've ever consumed. While it's ''supposed'' to be used for combat, the potential for moneymaking schemes is obvious, and the book the Charm's featured in mentions that the less military uses got a lot of exercise in the First Age. |
| 200 | * In the RPG ''Immortals: The Invisible War'', the most holy of Pride Dracuul speak solely in long thin strips of jade that have their words engraved on them. Dracuul use these in building their temple walls. |
| 201 | * In ''TabletopGame/{{Infernum}}'', the Carthenay have an ability called... well, ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Shit Gold."]]'' It specifies that the coins created can come from "any orifice," but... yeah. |
| 202 | * Judges Guild's ''Field Guide to Encounters Volume 2'' had monsters called Tinklers: |
| 203 | ** Holy Tinkler: Urinates holy water. |
| 204 | ** Tinkle 1: Excretes 6-36 copper pieces per day. |
| 205 | ** Tinkle 2: Lays gold pieces when on the ground. |
| 206 | ** Undead Bane: Lays silver nuggets with holy symbols on them. |
| 207 | ** Unholy Tinkle: Urinates unholy water. |
| 208 | * Tulpa excrement in ''TabletopGame/OverTheEdge'' is the key ingredient in the drug Nightmare. |
| 209 | * In ''TabletopGame/SeventhSea'', Dracheneisen is seemingly an indestructible metal. It is actually a ceramic made from fossilized dragon poop. |
| 210 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' supplement ''The Grimoire''. When creating magic items, a magician could reduce the difficulty of the enchantment by using exotic materials, such as "bodily fluids from a dragon". |
| 211 | -->Dragon: You want me to do WHAT in this cup! |
| 212 | ** Dunkelzahn's Will indicates that the Great Dragon saved up dropped scales and talon clippings for its entire life (probably a good idea, since they could be used for SympatheticMagic if they ended up in the wrong hands). However, the Will also bequeaths parts of this hoard of bodily waste to various people and organizations, with the tone of the document implying that they have significant value beyond merely being parts of Dunkelzahn. |
| 213 | * In the German board game ''Ursuppe'' (''Primordial Soup''), each player organism needs to eat markers of the other colors and poops out markers of it's own color. |
| 214 | * ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': Exactly what psyk-out weaponry uses for ammunition is unknown, only that it's a by-product of the Golden Throne of Terra which houses the GodEmperor of Mankind's quasi-corpse. Most players have very little difficulty in making "holy shit" jokes. |
| 215 | [[/folder]] |
| 216 | |
| 217 | [[folder:Theatre]] |
| 218 | * In "Blaník", one play by [[Creator/JaraCimrman Jára Cimrman]] Theatre, there is a legend that horse poop in the eponymous legendary mountain turns to gold. When the main characters asks the mountain's inhabitants about it, their answer is "it's not just 'horse'." Later, the main character appears with a solid gold pile of poop, claiming "The legend was true!" And even later, when he asks if he can bring it with him to the outside world, he's told: "Of course. After all, you made it yourself!" |
| 219 | [[/folder]] |
| 220 | |
| 221 | [[folder:Toys]] |
| 222 | * The Diaper Surprise dolls from ''Toys/{{Lalaloopsy}}'' poop beads. |
| 223 | * The Baby Born Bathtub Surprise dolls come with two diapers each. When the diapers are wet, patterns will appear on them and bracelet charms will pop out. |
| 224 | * The LOL Surprise pets have accessories hidden in their litter boxes. Also, some of the litter actually has glitter in it. |
| 225 | * Toys/{{Tamagotchi}}: |
| 226 | ** On the Tamagotchi Angel, the Angels produce golden, sparkling poo that has to be cleaned away. |
| 227 | ** Two characters, "Lucky Unchi-Kun" (from the Tamagotchi Angel) and "Super Unchi-Kun" (from the 2004 reboot) resembled ''living'' golden poos. Lucky Unchi-Kun is a rare evolution from the baby, and is said to be a sign of good luck if obtained. Super Unchi-Kun has limbs and can be a poo-cleaning servant on the Keitai and Akai devices if enough money is donated to the Gotchi King. |
| 228 | * The Cutie Tooties are toy poops that contain glittery slime. |
| 229 | [[/folder]] |
| 230 | |
| 231 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 232 | * ''VideoGame/ArkSurvivalEvolved'': |
| 233 | ** The base game has dung beetles, which process the obvious input into more valuable fertilizer and oil for gardening and crafting respectively. But the true prize goes to the ''Achatina'', a giant snail that poops ''cementing paste''. |
| 234 | ** The ''ARK: Extinction'' DLC has the gacha, giant cybernetic sloths whose wastes take the form of crystal geodes. These crystals can contain anything from uncommon crafting materials to high-quality weapons and blueprints, hence the name. As a bonus, while gacha will eat anything, their TrademarkFavoriteFood is snow owl pellets, ''their'' waste product. |
| 235 | * [[CompletionMockery Your reward for collecting all 900 Korok seeds]] in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild''? Hetsu's Gift, a coiled piece of golden... something, that the game's description says "smells pretty bad". The creators eventually came forward and stated that all the "seeds" are in fact, Korok poop. |
| 236 | * ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'' has literal golden poop, which drops coins[[note]]Which can either be pennies, nickles, or dimes.[[/note]] or the Counterfeit Penny trinket (provided you've unlocked it) when destroyed. You can either find it rarely replacing regular poop, or by using the spacebar item "The Poop" if you also have the [[TheMagicTouch Midas Touch item]]. |
| 237 | * After the main storyline of ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' expansion ''Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep'', [[spoiler:the Queen Butt Stallion can crap out loot when you feed her eridium.]] |
| 238 | * In the intro for ''VideoGame/BrainDead13'', Fritz's snot, picked from his nose, acts as a substitute for [[MacGyvering bubble gum]] that fixes Dr. Neurosis' computer and can cause trouble for Lance very quickly. |
| 239 | * ''VideoGame/CultOfTheLamb'': The "Sins of the Flesh" update added new types of poop produced by your cultists. These include literal gold poop that drops coins when cleaned up, and produces "golden fertilizer" that gives even more money when used on your crops. |
| 240 | * ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIV'' features Rosa/Rose, an elf-maiden who cries rubies as tears. [[spoiler:She's killed by a group of humans who hunt her for her ability. Her death is the BigBad's StartOfDarkness.]] |
| 241 | * The Fairy Drop key item in ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIV'' is a fairy's poop. You need it to reforge the King's Sword. |
| 242 | * One of the helper fishes in ''VideoGame/BricksOfAtlantis'' drops out golden coins ''Insaniquarium''-style. In the same vein, the Yellow Eyes in ''VideoGame/BricksOfEgypt2'' shed Solid Gold Tears. |
| 243 | * After doing some bugfixing in ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'', Toady accidentally released a version of .31.20 with some test data still in the coding... such that poultry laid ''iron chairs'' instead of eggs. Due to the recent changes in how minerals were distributed, a lot of players bootlegged this version for the sake of having an alternate source of precious iron for their forges. |
| 244 | * An early ''VideoGame/{{Eamon}}'' adventure has a monster which, when killed, leaves behind a turd of solid gold. |
| 245 | * ''VideoGame/{{Insaniquarium}}'': The fish defecate coins, stars, and even ''diamonds'', all worth money. |
| 246 | %%* Likewise in ''Website/GaiaOnline'''s "Booty Grab". |
| 247 | * In the ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies'' minigame/homage "Zombiequarium," the zombies defecate sunlight, which works as the game's [[YouRequireMoreVespeneGas resources]]. |
| 248 | * An unlockable cheat in ''VideoGame/LegoStarWars'', ''VideoGame/LegoIndianaJones'', and ''VideoGame/LegoTheLordOfTheRings'' allows mounted animals to poop out studs, the game's currency. |
| 249 | * The currency in DS game ''Livly Garden'' is called "doo doo." They are jewels that are visibly excreted by the pets you raise. |
| 250 | * It's learned in the original ''VideoGame/LunarTheSilverStar'' that dragon poop consists of humongous diamonds. After obtaining a sample, one of your starting characters is rich enough to start his own item shop. |
| 251 | -->'''Quark:''' Why is it you humans prize those things? Don't you know they're made from my [[CurseCutShort sh]]... Oh, what's the use! Here... take a look. This is the diamond! |
| 252 | * ''VideoGame/MapleStory'' seems to mock this trope with the item [[http://www.mapletip.com/maplestory-equipment/the+legendary+gold+poop+hat/1002239/ "The Legendary Gold Poop Hat"]]. What's sad is that this item is in a series of three items: Pairing it with an item based on flies makes flies circle around your character, while there is a purely aesthetic item along with it known as the "Poo Stick". No, we're not making this up. Yes, it is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. |
| 253 | * ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'': If a frog eats a small-sized magma cube, it will drop a glowing object known as a "froglight" (with the colour of light dropped dependant on what colour frog ate the magma cube). This is the only way to obtain this block, and is the only item which requires such a complicated method of retrieval as it requires the player to either push a frog into the Nether or a magma cube into the Overworld, since the two mobs normally do not spawn in the same dimension. |
| 254 | * Downplayed in ''VideoGame/MoshiMonsters'', where the droppings of the mythical beast called the Glammoth aren't valuable, but they're nice to look at, so they are used as decorations (it helps that they apparently don't smell like normal poop). |
| 255 | * Sewer crystals from ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankUpYourArsenal'', which come "fresh from the bowels of a King Amoeboid." Naturally, a CollectionSidequest revolves around the Recurring NPC, The Plumber, buying the crystals from you so he can make a necklace for his wife. |
| 256 | * It's hinted at, but eventually revealed at the end of ''VideoGame/ScienceGirls'' that [[spoiler:the whole reason for the alien invasion was to harvest human hair.]] |
| 257 | * The whole point of ''VideoGame/SlimeRancher'' is basically to harvest and sell the colorful, crystalline poop of the Slimes you can wrangle. The game calls them "plorts", but considering Slimes produce them when they eat, it's not hard to put two and two together. Each kind of plort has it's own unique usage, [[AllThereInTheManual detailed in the Slimepedia entry for the corresponding Slime.]] The plorts of the aptly named [[MetalSlime Gold Slime]] take this trope to its literal extreme--the plorts aren't outright described as being made of gold, but they're the most valuable of the different plorts by far (which have a base value of ''300 newbucks'', with second place going to the plorts of the Dervish, Tangle, and Mosaic Slimes, which are all worth only 75), and are so highly valued only because they're shiny. |
| 258 | * In the HD remake of ''VideoGame/{{Spelunky}}'', sacrificing a Golden Idol to Kali spawns a Golden Monkey that poops gold nuggets, as well as small gems... Though thanks to [[StalkedByTheBell The Ghost]] and how long it takes for the monkey to poop out enough to surpass the money you'd get from the Idol alone, it's usually better to just take the Idol to the exit. |
| 259 | * In the ''VideoGame/StarCraftIILegacyOfTheVoid'' expansion, one of the bonus objectives in the Rak'shir campaign is that there are creatures that are somehow imbued with solarite, a material desired by the Protoss to power the Spear of Adun. On completion of the objective, it is explained that the solarite are the result of the digestive systems of said creatures in the planet. From the tone of his reply, Artanis is disgusted by the revelation. |
| 260 | * The idle and aloof Gem Slugs in ''VideoGame/{{Startopia}}'' leave their droppings where they like, but these happen to made of energy-rich "turdite" [[EnergyEconomy and so are quite valuable]]. |
| 261 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Subnautica}}'', Sea Treader dung is the most powerful fuel for a bioreactor. |
| 262 | * ''VideoGame/WarioWareIncMegaMicrogames'': The FinalBoss microgame has Wario going after a treasure, which is revealed to be this. |
| 263 | * ''VideoGame/TheWolfAmongUs'' has this exchange while Bigby is doing research on Faith. |
| 264 | -->'''Bigby:''' What's Bricklebit?\ |
| 265 | '''Bufkin:''' A magic word.\ |
| 266 | '''Bigby:''' What's it do?\ |
| 267 | '''Bufkin:''' Makes animals shit gold. |
| 268 | * In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' the crystal Azsharite, found only in the cliffs of Azshara, is a highly energetic and rare material. As it turns out, it's the excretions of cliff giants who, due to having decades between bowel movements, tend to have ones that are very... concentrated. |
| 269 | ** In the original game it was highly valued for use in demon-hunting weapons; following the Cataclysm, goblins have deemed it an ideal goblin energy source, ''i.e.'' powerful and prone to sudden and unplanned explosions. |
| 270 | ** Bonus humor can be found in certain formations of Azsharite which take the form of humanoids in various states of terror. Looting one during quests can reveal a note concerning how foolish they were to go hunting a giant's leavings. |
| 271 | * ''VideoGame/DivinityOriginalSinII'': Malady, the powerful [[NonHumanHumanoidHybrid half-demon]] BigGood of the game, sometimes vomits up liquid [[{{Mana}} Source]] after using her strongest abilities. The player characters can then absorb it. |
| 272 | * ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' allows you to play a [[EatDirtCheap Lithoid]] Species, which eat Minerals instead of food. Some Lithoid species actually shed Rare Crystals (used in cutting edge electronics and advanced materials] scales, excrete Volatile Motes (often used for their being highly energetic, so they can be used as [[StuffBlowingUp High Explosives]] or in alloy manufactoring), or produce Exotic Gases (used for a variety of purposes in research and chemistry). Deviating from the trend, once they have the technology to actually use their body waste for industrial/military purposes, they treat it as just as much a Strategic Resources as any other species. |
| 273 | * ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'': [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Melusine's]] skin, claws, and tears all serve as powerful mana resources, and she actually paid to have the [[CoolAirship Storm Border]] remodeled for her [[LimitBreak Noble Phantasm]] by selling them to Da Vinci. |
| 274 | * Gold is ''the'' most prevalent color/substance in ''VideoGame/EldenRing'', and of the many, ''many'' items you can collect, one of them is Gold-Tinged Excrement. It's described as a highly stable substance; it doesn't dry out, nor does it ever lose its warmth or scent -- because gold, within this setting, is the color of order and permanence. "For better or for worse, it remains as it is." As such, it is used in the crafting of the [[DungFu most fetid weapons]], the use of which might poison ''yourself'' (there are some builds that actually use this to their advantage). |
| 275 | [[/folder]] |
| 276 | |
| 277 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 278 | * Myoopi, the cute critter in ''Webcomic/AnimeNewsNina'' poops candy. When sick, Myoopi winds up pooping cinnamon buns instead. |
| 279 | * Dragon scales in ''Webcomic/FarToTheNorth'' are this to the Rethuii, the native people of the North, who find them scattered around "like pinecones", which leads them to express disbelief when they find out that a group of Saengorians are not only looking for them to bring back to their King, but resorted to being DisguisedInDrag to get inside, held their entire family hostage and ripped a baby from her mother's arms to get them. |
| 280 | * ''Webcomic/{{Starslip}}'' - Cirbozoids have [[BizarreAlienBiology so many weird things]] going on in their bodies that they produce pretty much anything you could ask for as waste products. Mr. Jinx references it occasionally: his exoskeleton secretes ritalin, he has a "smelting cloaca" which deals with unneeded iron, and in the most recent arc, when he stopped eating to combat a sudden, unexpected, and highly problematic growth spurt, his body responded by making its own sustenance. |
| 281 | * One of the running gags in ''Webcomic/TwistedKaijuTheater'' is that lemon sours are actually King Ghidorah poop. This doesn't always stop people from eating them. |
| 282 | * ''Webcomic/WeaponBrown'' features schmoo, a delicious, tastes-like-whatever-you-want substance that turns out to be [[spoiler:excreted from the tail of a sluglike creature known as The Garf.]] |
| 283 | * In ''Wigu Adventures'', Sheriff Pony of Butter Dimension poops excellent-quality vanilla ice cream. |
| 284 | [[/folder]] |
| 285 | |
| 286 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 287 | * [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sARqCa5Cqu4 The Sasquatch poops gold coins.]] |
| 288 | * WebVideo/FiveSecondFilms: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic0SaWgDFJE 24k Golden Labrador.]] [[spoiler:Subverted -- it's gold-plated.]] |
| 289 | * ''Website/SCPFoundation'': |
| 290 | ** [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1330 SCP-1330]] is a [[AlternateUniverse multi-universal]] garbage dump. One object found is a toilet bowl full of polished diamonds. |
| 291 | ** [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-391 SCP-391]] looks like a normal barn owl… probably because it ''is'' a normal barn owl. Well, except for the fact that when it eats, it coughs up waste pellets made of various precious metals, instead of bone and fur (as one would find in ordinary owl pellets). So far, the Foundation has found pellets made of gold, silver, platinum, and indium. |
| 292 | ** [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1618 SCP-1618]] is an Are We Cool Yet? artifact that can turn waste products into this and objects of value into refuse that includes genitalia and used nuclear rods. |
| 293 | ** [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3000 SCP-3000]] excretes a thick, brackish, grey fluid codenamed Y-909. Said fluid is used to produce [[LaserGuidedAmnesia amnestics]], making it highly valuable to the Foundation. |
| 294 | ** [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3171 SCP-3171]] are sentient plants that produce spores which are also used in making [[LaserGuidedAmnesia amnestics]]. |
| 295 | |
| 296 | * They say Creator/ChuckNorris [[Website/ChuckNorrisFacts can eat coal and crap diamonds.]] His tears can also cure cancer. Unfortunately, he never cries. |
| 297 | * "I can stand extremes of cold! Thank you rathergood toys!" "I've just shat ''gold!'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2SzkluYVZ4 Thank you rather good toys!]]" |
| 298 | * It's rubies and coins for the imps in Podcast/HelloFromTheMagicTavern. |
| 299 | * ''Website/{{Neopets}}'': |
| 300 | ** Dung is implied to be just normal dung, but it has many uses in Neopia. It's edible (though many pets don't ''want'' to eat it), and many decorations, furniture, and other items are made of it. |
| 301 | ** Many foods are made of snot (though they're generally unpopular). |
| 302 | ** Water faerie tears have healing powers. |
| 303 | * ''Literature/LoomingGaia'': Cecaelia expel cecaelia oil from their cloacas, which is rather valuable as it can be used as waterproof ink, alchemy ingredient, specialized fuel, and even a fancy sauce. |
| 304 | [[/folder]] |
| 305 | |
| 306 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 307 | * ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' has Finn and Jake ending up in a pile of bananas at the start of "Return to the Nightosphere," and constantly wonder why they ended up in it (and why the demons are so grossed out by it). The next episode, "Daddy's Little Monster," shows that one of the demons of the Nightosphere poops bananas. Out his ears. Fortunately, they find the footage of this ''before'' Jake bit into one of the bananas... |
| 308 | * ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' |
| 309 | ** After Roger {{fail|ureIsTheOnlyOption}}s to find [[PunyEarthlings his species's superpower]] in one episode, he poops himself out of shock when he crashes into a power station (trying to see if he could fly, possibly). What comes out is a solid gold turd... encrusted with diamonds. Said turd is found by some random people, where is proves to be an ArtifactOfAttraction with multiple people murdered fighting over it. |
| 310 | --->''"This isn't us! It's this... thing. It's putting bad thoughts into our heads."'' |
| 311 | ** In another episode, when going through his reproductive cycle, Roger squirts out breast milk that, when combined with Francine's potato salad, is absolutely addictive. Pretty soon Stan has him gorged to the point of bursting and hooked up to a milking machine 24/7. |
| 312 | * An episode of ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce'' has a race of aliens who like to eat popcorn and poop out solid gold feces. They actually call it [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Solid Gold Poop.]] |
| 313 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Dinotrux}}'' features the Stegarbasaur Goldtrux, called that because he is obsessed with and only eats gold. As Stegarbasars normally eat rocks and then poop them as bricks, that means Goldtrux instead poops solid gold bricks. |
| 314 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' loves this trope. |
| 315 | ** Zoidberg always hacks up stuff when he has grit in his throat. In "Bendin' in the Wind", Leela and Amy think it's disgusting, until they notice the "stuff" is actually beautiful pearls, keeping in tune with his resemblance to various aquatic species -- that's how pearls are really made. Zoidberg thinks they're disgusting too; when Leela and Amy start cooing over how beautiful the pearls are, he says "Eeew, you're touching them!", which also provides the page quote. |
| 316 | ** Dark matter, a prime starship fuel, is Nibblonian poo. |
| 317 | ** The addictive soft drink Slurm turns out to [[spoiler:come out of the behind of the queen of a hive of alien slugs]]. Interestingly, it's possible for humanoids to be [[spoiler:turned into one of said queens (though the resulting Slurm is said to have a crappy taste) and said queen appears to be addicted to Slurm herself...]] Fry does [[IAteWhat do a]] SpitTake after finding out what Slurm is, but immediately goes back to guzzling the stuff. The Queen points out that honey comes from "bee's behinds" (which isn't exactly true but is no less disgusting when you think about it). During the episode, we hear that toothpaste in the Futurama universe [[YouDoNOTWantToKnow is made from some other alien species that the Slurm Queen does not even want to mention]]. |
| 318 | ** There's also the episode where ambergris (whale vomit -- see TruthInTelevision below) is an important plot point. |
| 319 | ** And while less valuable, postage stamp glue is made from toad mucus. |
| 320 | ** Similarly, Bender occasionally [[VisualPun shits bricks]] at hilarious moments. |
| 321 | ** Don't forget to give it a blast from your spice weasel! As spice weasels are refillable, with several spices sold by a Neptunian Emeril Lagasse [[{{Expy}} parody]] for the specific purpose of refilling spice weasels, this may or may not be an example. |
| 322 | * Humorously subverted in a wartime WesternAnimation/MerrieMelodies, where the goose that ONCE laid golden eggs is now patriotic and laying something even more valuable to her country: ALUMINUM eggs! Which she donates to the war effort before going back to laying more. |
| 323 | * ''WesternAnimation/MyLifeAsATeenageRobot'': Jenny the robot has a younger sister named XJ-1, who is essentially a baby and doesn't do much, but she does secrete oil, whether in the form of vomiting it, burping it, sneezing it, or hiccuping it. According to Jenny, it's sometimes a sign that her oil needs changing. |
| 324 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow'': "The Cat That Laid the Golden Hairball" revolves around this trope. Ren sees a television report that cat hairballs have all sorts of amazing properties that make them more valuable than even gold. The result is that Ren makes Stimpy lick all of his fur off and hack it back up to collect the hairballs. |
| 325 | * ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' has an example from the ''ComicBook/RichieRich''[=/=]''Cribs'' sketch. Rather than golden ''poop'', Richie Rich appears to literally shit ''bars'' of gold, leading to some... difficulty on his part. |
| 326 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' has the chicken that lays painted Easter eggs in the Season 9 episode "Painter's Egg-cellent Adventure". Smurf essence, while not an example of the trope in itself, can also be extracted from the sweat, tears, and hair of the Smurfs themselves. |
| 327 | * A SufficientlyAdvancedAlien in ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' appears to the children as a taco... that poops ice cream on the kids' suggestion, after the alien tried countless other forms that they didn't like. {{Squick}} factor aside, it would probably be delicious. Cartman is indeed shown eating the ice cream while the aliens check on the status of his probe. |
| 328 | * ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' gives us [=NuFu=], a sentient alien tofu creature bent on stealing the Earth's cows as an energy source. Part of its plan to accomplish this involves setting up a fast-food restaurant, "Mega Meaty Meat", whose entire menu (and manager!) is fake meat made of [=NuFu=]'s "by-products." |
| 329 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Hilda}}'': "The Jorts Incident" reveals that the Tide Mice apparently poop gold. When David pockets the poop, it burns a hole in his pocket and dissolves. |
| 330 | [[/folder]] |
| 331 | |
| 332 | [[folder:Real Life]] |
| 333 | * Chicken eggs comes out of the hen's cloaca, which is where everything a chicken excretes comes from. And if they're unfertilised, as is the case for most eggs on the market, they can't hatch and thus are useless from the hen's perspective (expect maybe as emergency food). |
| 334 | * Ambergris. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambergris Whale vomit.]] What isn't vomited up, is in fact shat out the other end. Historically used in perfumes, incense, and even food. Alternatives are available, but that doesn't stop it from being worth [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4642722.stm $20 a gram.]] |
| 335 | * Dye has a rich history of involving nasty organic substances, some of which fit this trope. The famous purple dye of ancient Tyre (which was extremely valuable and gave rise to the association of purple with royalty) was made out of something mucus-y secreted by a sea snail. Urine was often a component in dyes or mordants to help the color set. Easy to collect, after all. "[[Series/{{QI}} So the reason that policemen's uniforms used to be such a rich and impressive hue was that they had been widdled on by Geordies]]." |
| 336 | ** Dyes derived from plants often go through processes that mean that they are incredibly bad smelling - but the end product was incredibly expensive. Fermentation is a common practice. Indigo and woad vats often use urine to turn the colorant water-soluble. |
| 337 | * Guano is a name for the excrement of [[BirdPoopGag seabirds]], bats, and seals. Until the late 19th century it was a valuable resource in the production of fertilizers and explosives, enough to trigger UsefulNotes/TheChinchaIslandsWar and the UsefulNotes/WarOfThePacific. Due to the high content of both potassium and sodium nitrate in the stuff, it could be used to make gunpowder. |
| 338 | * Manure from livestock like horses and cattle is a common constituent of molds used for casting bronze. It goes back as far as ancient Ireland, but it's still used today. Also, it's pretty watertight, making it a good filler for removable doors in flood-walls. Like guano, it's a great fertilizer that is also 100% organic. |
| 339 | ** The Roman Emperor Caligula, who was characterized as ''insane'' by contemporary scholars, treated his favorite horse Incitatus like a human being by promoting him to Consul and gave him with a stable of marble, with an ivory manger, purple blankets, and a collar of precious stones. Caligula even had servants tend to Incitatus and feed him oats mixed with gold flake which made his manure more valuable than the average citizen of the time. |
| 340 | * Bees eat nectar and then vomit it back up several times. After it dries out, it's honey. This isn't a true example, as it's not a waste product. It's supposed to be eaten--by the bees, mind you, although humans have bred bees and supplied them with bountiful nectar sources to the point where the bees make far more honey than the hive could ever use. A true example is when bees use the secretions of aphids, honeydew, to make honeydew honey. Certain ants also feed on aphid honeydew, which has earned aphids the nickname "ant cows." |
| 341 | * Kopi luwak, the most expensive drink in the world (around $300/gram), is made primarily of coffee beans harvested from the feces of a certain species of civet. ''VideoGame/FableII'' contains a reference to kopi luwak: the most powerful coffee drink in the game is called "Mustela," and it's created by the same process, only involving weasels. Another coffee company does the same thing, but with elephants. |
| 342 | * Some types of leather are tanned with chemicals present in animal urine and excrement. (Others use tannins from plant matter such as oak bark, or fat such as brains or fish liver oil, but most nowadays are tanned with chromium salts.) |
| 343 | * Ladies, [[YouDoNOTWantToKnow you seriously don't want to know]] what's in your makeup. It's ground up fish scales! And bat poop! Don't forget the bat poop! |
| 344 | * Pearls are formed when a bivalve gets an irritation in part of its body and attempts to seal it off by forming said valuable item. This is the same process that creates ''boogers''. |
| 345 | * Chemically speaking, lanolin is a wax secreted by wool-bearing animals. In layman's terms, it's the equivalent of when your hair is greasy from not washing it for far too long. |
| 346 | * The nest used for birds'-nest soup is made from the bird's ''saliva''. |
| 347 | * Phosphorus (the active ingredient in match heads) was first isolated by boiling urine with charcoal and sand. Since it's becoming apparent that in the coming years the world supplies of the stuff are going to run short, there have been toilet seats developed for the future needs that actually isolate and collect it from the urine, ready for sale. |
| 348 | * A Belgian who visited the Maasai of Kenya in the 1950s commented that their beer had a touch of ammonia to its taste. This was, he explained, because they washed the container in cow urine. |
| 349 | * Human urine: |
| 350 | ** It used to be used for a number of reasons, including extracting saltpetre for gunpowder. Some English entrepreneurs became quite rich by collecting the stuff from farms and selling it in London. The story goes that these merchants were embarrassed about the source of their wealth, and would claim they imported wine or something similar, at which their listeners would express their incredulity by saying "You're taking the piss!" |
| 351 | ** A few centuries ago, they discovered urine could clean teeth, and some folks actually used it to do so. They didn't know at the time that it wasn't the urine that made teeth shiny, but the ammonia ''in'' the urine. Indeed, ammonia is still an ingredient in some modern brands of toothpaste. |
| 352 | --> "The more polished those teeth of yours are, the more urine they proclaim you to have drunk." ~Catullus, Roman Poet |
| 353 | ** The mushroom ''Amanita muscaria'', or fly agaric, contains a psychoactive drug. In Siberia and India, tribal shamans would eat it and then give their urine to everyone else (apparently it had less side effects once it had gone through the kidneys). In some parts of Siberia, the rich would buy the drug and then sell their urine to the poor. Allegedly, that could be repeated four to five times. |
| 354 | ** Because urine fresh from a healthy urinary system is biologically close to sterile, it's been used for thousands of years as an improvised antiseptic. In some herding cultures, livestock-keepers traditionally use a bit of their own urine to cleanse the wound after gelding a male animal or cutting the umbilical cord of a newborn one. |
| 355 | ** Contrary to popular belief, peeing on a jellyfish sting does not help it heal, even if it is sterile. In fact, the ammonia in urine can actually make it worse. The sting should be treated with liberal amounts of vinegar. The next best thing to do is to flush the stung area with hot salt water (''not'' seawater). |
| 356 | ** The Aztecs would use warm urine on fresh wounds. |
| 357 | ** [[http://www.asaabstracts.com/strands/asaabstracts/abstract.htm;jsessionid=9AD474933C7D662ABC6D56458549230F?year=2003&index=14&absnum=619 The Canadian military]] survived the first large-scale chlorine gas attack in World War I by urinating on cloths and holding it over their faces, after a medical officer pointed out the urine would crystalize the chlorine and prevent it from being inhaled. |
| 358 | ** The city of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongyang Dongyang]], China, has the local yearly delicacy known as "Virgin Boy Eggs" which are, to put it bluntly, eggs boiled in the urine of prepubescent boys. In the early spring, the vendors put basins and buckets in elementary schools for young boys to pee in so they can prepare the eggs later. While there are some (questionable) claims of the eggs having some medicinal benefits, they are mostly eaten because it's a deeply rooted tradition. |
| 359 | * Although trees don't poop, the valuable heartwood at the center of a tree gets its strength, and often its beauty, from the waste products and unneeded trace substances that accumulate there. |
| 360 | * Symbiotic microorganisms are living off the fiber -- cellulose, indigestible to humans -- in your large intestine right now. Basically, they're eating your poo. Plus, you're deriving useful vitamins from ''their'' metabolic waste products, so you're eating theirs. |
| 361 | * Historically, Japanese cities were clean because there was a system in place for selling human wastes to be taken into the farmlands for fertilizer. |
| 362 | * Manna from Literature/TheBible is interpreted by historians as having been a certain type of insect crap. Particularly amusing since all insects except locusts are distinctly non-kosher to eat, and crap of any kind is ritually unclean. (Obviously, honey is bee vomit; kashrut gives a special exception for honey.) |
| 363 | ** Also from the Bible: in [[Literature/BooksOfKings 2nd Kings]] chapter 6, the Aramean siege against Samaria would be so great and painful to endure that the people would sell the fourth part of a kab (about 1 cup) of dove's dung for five shekels of silver. |
| 364 | * Coprolites can provide valuable information to paleontologists about the dietary habits of extinct animals. With good reason, because they're fossilized poop. |
| 365 | ** Works for archaeologists and people too. This is how an unsavoury fact about ancient York was, er, unearthed. Study of fossilised turds revealed the Vikings were plagued by intestinal parasites like threadworms. No wonder they were so mean in battle... |
| 366 | * Recycling everything they can out of the garbage they collected, Waste Management, Inc. (recognized by their WM logo) managed to ''double'' their revenue stream. |
| 367 | * How do you make yogurt or sourdough? You take ordinary milk or dough, add specific kinds of bacteria, and wait for them to excrete their waste products into your food base. |
| 368 | * Food is a basic necessity of life, and therefore can be considered extremely valuable even secondhand. Dung beetles are known for eating dung. Some eat only dung. |
| 369 | ** For that matter, many young animals intentionally eat poop from an older member of their species, allowing them to introduce needed symbiotic microorganisms (see above) to their digestive tracts. Likewise, many small animals with short digestive tracts will eat food, defecate it half-digested, then eat it again for a second run through their gut: a less-sanitary substitute for chewing one's cud. |
| 370 | * The confectioner's glaze coating your Junior Mints is a mixture of alcohol and shellac. What's shellac? The excretion of the female lac bug (a "[[{{Pun}} she-lac]]," if you will). |
| 371 | ** Same goes for apples. So remember kids, the only difference between the shiny apple and the dull apple is a liberal coating of beetle poop. Choose accordingly. |
| 372 | ** Among the uses of shellac, it is used on wood finishing in many different ways, Including the traditional French polish, which uses shellac as its main ingredient. Others include as adhesive on watchmaking, as low-temperarure fuel on fireworks and as a longer lasting alternative to nail polish. Also, for several decades it was used on shellac records. |
| 373 | * The gorgeous tropical beaches that vacationers walk barefoot upon are made up of fine sand, most of which was chewed off of reefs and then pooped out by parrotfish and other coral-munchers. |
| 374 | * There now exist [[http://gothamist.com/2007/12/19/edible_gold_onc.php capsules of edible gold,]] to make the user ''literally'' poop gold, for no real reason other than ConspicuousConsumption. |
| 375 | * Oxygen. Plants basically exhale what they don't need for themselves of the stuff to get rid of it, yet most of today's animal life (including humans) would have ''serious'' trouble trying to function without it. |
| 376 | ** A better example is from ancient earth during the Great Oxygenation Event about 2.4 billion years ago. As organisms began to excrete oxygen as a waste product, it built to levels which were highly toxic to many organisms and caused a [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt mass extinction so bad it was also called the Oxygen Catastrophe]]. The surviving organisms, however, found oxygen's role as an oxidizer in chemical reactions just so ''useful'' for their metabolism that it's tough to imagine a substitute that would have allowed the eventual richness of complex organisms. Even now, anaerobic creatures are usually really simple, like anaerobic bacteria and protozoans, or really weird and living in specialized habitats, like deep sea worms. |
| 377 | ** Carbon dioxide is an even better example: to most aerobic life forms, it's a toxic waste product, but plants and other photosynthetic organisms use it to make food. |
| 378 | * Antidotes for snake bites can be made from snake venom. This is done by injecting it into blood or other living tissues and harvesting the biological defences produced. |
| 379 | * [[http://www.snopes.com/medical/drugs/premarin.asp Premarin]], used for hormone-replacement therapy to alleviate menopause symptoms, is made by collecting estrogen and progesterone from the urine of pregnant horses. Note the name '''Pre'''gnant '''mar'''e ur'''in'''e. |
| 380 | * Many modern day drugs and treatments would be uneconomic to produce except for the fact that humans have learned to genetically alter some microbes so that they effectively pee out the required product. Still a work in progress since it can't be used for everything - yet. |
| 381 | ** This also works with other things, even complex mammals such as goats, who can be genetically altered to produce spider silk. |
| 382 | * An ongoing research project at the University of Minnesota has been curing patients with harmful strains of colonic bacteria in their gut, by introducing benign bacteria from healthy donors' colons and letting them out-compete the harmful ones. One anonymous donor to the project has successfully cured ten out of ten recipients with his fecal bacteria, suggesting his poop really ''is'' a "solid gold" winner for gastrointestinal health. |
| 383 | * The end product of the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSFe91XlwYQ Cloaca machine]], a machine that simulates the digestive tract in a bizarre fusion of art and science. The poops have sold for 1500 Euro...each. |
| 384 | * An interesting thing about [[MagicalAntibiotics penicillin]] is that in its pure form it goes through your system very fast: you pee out 80% of a dose. In the early days of penicillin--when it was hard to produce--a person on penicillin would be required to collect his/her pee so the penicillin could be refined out and used again. Eventually, they figured out a chemical that would keep you from peeing it all out, allowing you to (1) take fewer, smaller doses of the stuff and (2) not have to collect your pee anymore...and then they figured out a way to produce penicillin cheaply (without the intervention of the yeast from which it was originally extracted), and the price of penicillin fell through the floor, and now in the unlikely event you get the stuff[[note]]unlikely because most things penicillin was originally used to cure have developed a resistance to it, at least partly ''because'' so much of it was peed out that all the strains that ''weren't'' resistant to it died out[[/note]], you'll be peeing it out because nobody cares anymore. |
| 385 | * TruthInTelevision in parts of the world where people burn animal or other dung for want of other fuel. Creator/AldousHuxley, in his travel book ''Literature/JestingPilate'', describes being hailed as a lord by a grateful woman when the elephant he is riding defecates copiously in front of her house. |
| 386 | ** Chris Ofili's infamous ''The Holy Virgin Mary'', a collage of materials including elephant dung, is influenced in part by African tribes that regard this dung as a valuable product. |
| 387 | * In 1961, artist [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piero_Manzoni Piero Manzoni]] produced ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist%27s_Shit Merda d'Artista]]'' (''Artist's Shit'')--90 cans allegedly containing [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the artist's feces]]. Each 30 gram can originally sold for $37: in 1961 the price of gold was US$35 per ounce. $35/ounce x 30g = $37. His poop was worth its weight in gold. When one can was auctioned in 2008 it fetched £97,250. |
| 388 | * At one point, the function of the amniotic membranes was not well understood. [[ScienceMarchesOn We now know]] that their purpose is to provide a measure of protection (as in, cushioning) for a developing fetus, and that it is analogous to the thin membrane just under an eggshell. [[Myth/NauticalFolklore But it was once believed by many seafaring cultures to function as a sort of diving bell]], and a baby who was born with the membrane covering his/her head (that is, "in the caul") was BornLucky and not able to drown. (Now a ForgottenTrope in many parts of the world, as many times doctors and midwives will rupture those membranes artificially.) So, they were sometimes kept as a lucky charm by sailors and fishermen to protect against disaster at sea. Some mothers (or midwives) would save the membranes, preserve them, and sell them for a small fortune to seamen who wanted them. |
| 389 | * Honeydew. Many insects, most notably aphids, only feed on plant sap, due to this unusual diet they excrete a very sweet liquid. It is well known that ants "farm" aphids, harvesting their honeydew and protecting the completely defenseless critters from predators. The substance sees some use among humans as well! |
| 390 | * While not poop, the old Roman Eifel aqueduct was heavily mined during the middle ages for the thick layers calcium carbonate that had accreted to its walls during periods of lack of maintenance before it was ultimately cut. People actually used it as decorations as "Eifel Marble" even though it's the same stuff modern plumbers try like mad to keep from forming in pipes and tends to be associated with sewers. |
| 391 | [[/folder]] |
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