If you’ve ever been unlucky enough to clean up after a snake, you might’ve noticed that they don’t exactly pee like we do. Instead of liquid waste, reptiles expel a weird chalky solid.
That’s called “urates.” Some researchers looked into what that stuff even is and found something somewhat surprising: snakes crystallize their pee, and it might one day help us humans fight kidney stones and gout… as disgusting as that sounds.
In a new paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, a team led by Georgetown University crystallographer Jennifer Swift investigated the “pee crystals” of more than twenty reptile species. Under the microscope, they found tiny textured spheres made of uric acid nanocrystals, some only a few micrometers wide.
They’re part of a sophisticated waste-management system forged by evolution.
Snake Pee Is Solid—And It Might Hold the Secret to Curing Gout
Nitrogen is a toxic byproduct of our metabolism. We get rid of it by dissolving it in water and flushing it down the toilet or letting it run along the side of the road as urine.
Reptiles do it differently. They turn it into solid uric acid. This saves them tons of water, which helps them survive in arid deserts.
The researchers were surprised to find that some reptiles were recycling these uric acid crystals. They were using them to neutralize ammonia, another toxin, and turn it into harmless dust.
This process keeps snakes hydrated and un-poisoned. It’s a nifty, if gross, trick. We certainly don’t do that. When uric acid builds up in us, it doesn’t protect us from anything. It does the opposite. It forms painful crystals in joints and the kidneys, leading to kidney stones and gout.
Swift and her colleagues hope that their work sorting through crystallized reptile urine might one day help us create better treatments for gout or kidney stones. If you’re a kidney stone sufferer or you eat enough meat and protein to cause pain in your joints like you’re some medieval king, the cure for what ails you might one day be wrung out of a snake’s cloaca.
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