Most people wouldn’t want to step in a pile of smelly zebra dung, but researchers at Tulane U. are jumping right into it.
Scientists have found a bacterium called TU-103 in the waste of African zebras, which might be the solution to a cheaper enzyme for biofuel, according to The New York Times.
Tim Sink, an intern at U. Florida’s Bioenergy and Sustainable Technologies Laboratory, said the available enzymes are expensive to use, so finding another microbe is essential to the economic efficiency of a biofuel project.
He said it’s hard to guess whether the new enzyme will be successful because research is conducted on a trial-and-error basis.
Pratap Pullammanappallil, who teaches environmental biotechnology at UF, said animal droppings are commonly used to create another alternative energy source called biogas, a replacement for natural gas.
Jonathan Miot, director of the Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo, said zebras, which are in the same taxonomic family as horses, have especially strong stomachs.
Miot referred to them as a garbage dump, because while most animals have trouble digesting various species of grasses, zebras can eat all of them.
Miot said zebras have excellent digestive systems due to the bacteria in their guts.
When a zebra eats, the bacteria break down cellulose, a substance indigestible to mammals.
The bacteria produce a waste called volatile fatty acid, which the zebra uses as energy.
Zebras’ bacteria just happen to be right for biofuel research.
“They eat, and they poop,” Miot said. “It’s what they do all day anyways.”
But zebras can be dangerous to handle. They have a strong kick, which, he said, is equivalent to the power of a hand grenade explosion.
Scientists won’t need to continue to gather droppings from captive zebras because the enzymes can be reproduced in a laboratory, Pullammanappallil said.
Miot said Tulane’s project has the potential to inpsire new ideas about how to harness animals’ capabilities.
“There is a lot of stuff out there that we have no idea [about],” he said. “Animals are a lot more creative than we think, though it’s not intentional.”