Believe It or Snot

Your little brother isn’t the only nose-picking animal.

What is hyena butter and would it be appropriate to spread on toast? Why is giraffe saliva such a good lubricant? How does some mollusk mucus work like a fishing pole? And what’s the deal with pygmy sperm whales’ “anal syrup?”

In Believe It or Snot, scientists and bestselling authors Nick Caruso and Dani Rabaiotti detail the slimy secrets of 80 organisms that ooze, drip, dribble, and splatter. Not quite a solid but firmer than a liquid, slime is used by plants and animals for defense, respiration, movement, feeding, communication, and even reproduction. Slime, you might say, is the glue that holds our world together.

But that leaves an important question: which creature is earth’s slimiest?

In this book, the authors dive into the goo and come up with a definitive ranking of earth’s slimiest creatures-while offering up a plethora of facts about the natural world’s ooze, gunge, sludge, gunk, and goop.