“…Defection is an overt indication of colonic motility that shows daily rhythmicity, peaking in the active period. This has been reported in numerous species, including diurnal humans ( Rendtorff and Kashgarian, 1967 ; Heaton et al, 1992 ; Aschoff, 1994 ; Shemerovskii, 2002 ) and non-human primates ( Bernstein, 1964 ; Caton et al, 1996 ), birds ( Clarke, 1979 ; Rodriguez-Sinovas et al, 1994 ; Malek et al, 2020 ), dogs ( Hirabayashi et al, 2009 ), horses ( Piccione et al, 2005 ), camels ( Aubè et al, 2017 ), and sheep ( Piccione et al, 2005 ); and nocturnal rodents ( Gosling, 1979 ; Magot and Chevallier, 1983 ; Firpo et al, 2005 ; Hoogerwerf et al, 2010 ; de Azevedo et al, 2011 ; Platt et al, 2013 ; Allen and Johnson, 2018 ), foxes ( Klenk, 1971 ), antechinus ( Cowan et al, 1974 ), rabbit ( Jilge, 1974 ; Jilge and Hudson, 2001 ), hare ( Pehrson, 1983 ), and house musk ( Kobayashi et al, 2022 ). Some species, such as degu and the Mongolian gerbil that can show either diurnal or nocturnal activity patterns ( Refinetti, 2006 ) have a more constant defecation pattern ( Kenagy et al, 1999 ).…”