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MIAMI
-- Meadow muffins. Guano. Feces. Solid waste. Kaka.
The words for poop are endless, but the Miami Metrozoo
has another term to add to the list: educational.
Now on display is a 5,000 square foot exhibit on excrement
titled ``The Scoop on Poop,'' which invites visitors to
explore the science of scat. The exhibit is filled with
photos of animals in some of their most indelicate moments.
Stool sample models abound: hay-like football-sized balls
(elephant), kidney-bean-looking pellets (porcupine) and
coal-like lumps coated with fur (black bear).
Beyond the ``ick'' factor, however, zoo officials and
the exhibit's creators say there is a lot of information
being imparted. Visitors can smell the stench of flowers
that mimic dung to attract flies for pollination. Videos
include one of a hippo spreading its droppings around
to mark its territory. Simple games include ``Who Dung
It?'' and ``Test Your .2 I.Q.''
``We didn't want this to be a gross exhibit for shock
value,'' said Chad Peeling, who helped create the display.
``Our goal with the exhibit was to make people think,
kids especially, about the science in all aspects in life
and this thing that adults don't like to talk about.''
Miami is the exhibit's second stop after opening at a
Virginia museum in May. Created by Clyde Peeling's Reptiland
in Allenwood, Pa., it is based on a 2001 book of the same
name. After the exhibit closes at the Metrozoo in January
it will make stops in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Chad
Peeling said.
The exhibit is not the first to feature feces, however.
An exhibit called ``All the Poop'' toured Japan in 2001
and another in England showcased scat samples.
On a recent afternoon one woman cheered ``go, go, go''
as two children raced model dung beetles at a station
in the Miami exhibit. Students on a class trip posed in
a cutout of a person sitting in an outhouse. Others examined
slides of parasites found in dung using a microscope,
while classmates weighed themselves on a scale designed
to tell them how long it takes an elephant to poop their
weight.
``I don't think it's that disgusting,'' said Bruno Cazarini,
13, of the exhibit's topic. ``I think plenty of people
get the wrong impression.''
Cazarini, who was visiting the zoo with a school group,
said he knew about dung beetles, some of which burrow
inside dung to eat and rest. But he did not know about
its uses as a type of waterproof plaster for the homes
of Masai people in East Africa, which he learned from
information at the exhibit.
Adults have had fun with material, too. Some volunteers
and zoo employees have started wearing plastic poop pins
that look like the real thing. Zoo personnel have also
brought out a bowl of chocolate-covered candy, inviting
visitors to take one if they dare.
Elephant keepers, meanwhile, were charged with weighing
the amount of elephant poop one of the zoo's Asian male
elephants, Dahlip, produces in a 24-hour period. The turd
total: 540 pounds. Meanwhile, a commercial for the exhibit,
which will begin running shortly, has already shown up
on YouTube and features a variety of grunting noises.
One couple, who are zoo donors, even called to offer to
loan the zoo a scat sample of their own. The pair has
a lump of excrement from 1973 Triple Crown winner Secretariat
enclosed in a glass globe, which the zoo plans to put
on exhibit within a few weeks.
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