A tropical rain forest of creepy-crawly things infest the belly-buttons of every human on Earth!
That’s the shocking finding revealed in an in-depth study that discovered thousands of different bacteria make navels their home-sweet-home.
The determined researchers at North Carolina State University dug deep past lint and shedding skin to uncover what they call a veritable “tropical forest” of microscopic fauna. Surprisingly, some of the bacteria is new to science having never before been discovered.
National Geographic reported the study, formally called “The Belly Button Biodiversity project study,” was launched in early 2012 and focused on a group of 60 people who volunteered to have their navels swabbed to collect whatever squiggly squirmy things hiding out there.
The team of curious ecologists led by Rob Dunn collected quite a harvest with their Q-tip swabs. Samples from the 60 navels yielding some pretty exotic bacteria. Dunn and his colleagues managed to harvest 2,368 bacterial species. Of those found, the team reports 1,458 may be new to biologists.
The number of microbial fauna retrieved from belly buttons were as few as 29 in some, while other navels carried around as many as 107 different types of bacteria. Overall, the test group’s navels averaged about 67 diverse microbes. The type of bacteria discovered varied by individual subject. The study reports that of all the diverse bacteria types found about 92 percent were found in less than 10 percent of the navels swabbed. Some of the more exotic bacteria were discovered in only one person’s navel.
Pointing to particular examples of that phenomenon, National Geographic notes that “One science writer, for instance, apparently harbored a bacterium that had previously been found only in soil from Japan—where he has never been.” And yet “Another, more fragrant individual, who hadn’t washed in several years, hosted two species of so-called extremophile bacteria that typically thrive in ice caps and thermal vents.”
How did strange bacteria from the Antarctic and microbes from Japanese soil end up in North American navels? The researchers don’t know and admit they need to know how such a bacterium can show up. But overall they find it intriguing, even exciting.
“That makes the belly button a lot like rain forests,” Dunn told National Geographic. “In any given forest,” he explained, “the spectrum of flora might vary, but an ecologist can count on a certain few dominant tree types.
“The idea that some aspects of our bodies are like a rain forest—to me it’s quite beautiful,” he added. “And it makes sense to me as an ecologist. I understand what steps to take next; I can see how that works.”
Next up for study: the armpit. [See: “Armpit-pa-looza.”]
Any volunteers?
