Wild emus have not roamed Tasmania since the 1800s, and researchers are now looking at the birds' poo to find answers about how they lived.
Tasmania's ecosystem could be missing out by no longer being home to wild emus, and researchers say the answers are hidden in the large birds' poo.Researchers say they were important in the state's ecology because they dispersed seeds far and wide
Now researchers are gathering clues in south-east Victoria about what emus eat, and are thinking about how they could be reintroduced to TasmaniaUniversity of Tasmania researcher Matthew Fielding said emus were no longer performing an important seed dispersal role in Tasmania."They will then poop out those seeds, and those poos can have up to thousands of seeds in them.Mr Fielding said emus could travel 50 kilometres in a day, spreading seeds far and wide.
The research will map the current distribution of plants and model what has changed since the emu became extinct.
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