You read that headline right but it might not mean what you think.
And, even though most of us are on the prowl for a better portable hard drive, we’re not advocating seal poop as a medium.
Nonetheless, this story is pretty remarkable.
A USB drive containing photos was found in frozen seal poop and this discovery has everyone asking questions about everything from the environment to what kind of photos were on the drive.
One amazing factoid you probably weren’t expecting from this story: The photos stored on the drive allowed for the identification of their owner.
The USB drive was found by New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA). When the team went to defrost a block leopard seal poo, the USB drive was found. Definitely not a part of a healthy diet for a leopard seal, the USB drive was also an odd find, to say the least.
In case you’re wondering what NIWA has a bunch of frozen leopard seal poop, apparently, a vet a the institute was tracking the health of a leopard seal on the beach and monitoring its diet via its scat.
Even more amazing is that the team recovered a video from the drive. The release of this footage on The Project NZ led to the discovery of the owner, Amanda Nally, who was, needless to say, amazed.
What makes all of this so intriguing is that the USB drive would have had to survive the rigors of a seal’s digestive system and come out the other end relatively intact.
No one has revealed the brand of USB drive that was capable of these feats but an inquiring public definitely wants to know.
On a personal note, most of my USB drives can’t withstand mild storage for travel. Something capable of going through stomach acid and back has my attention indeed.
