Mossy Otzi

I don’t know what it is about this guy, but I do find him quite fascinating. Recent studies have found that Otzi has not one, not two, but six different types of moss in his gut. Six different varieties!
This has genuinely surprised archaeologists and scientists working with the Ice mummy, for several reasons, but principally because moss tastes bad. And how do they know this? Remember my Frank and Bob scenario? I told you it was real!
Considering that the mosses tasted disgusting and shared the same nutritional value as cardboard, it has been suggested that they may have been ingested accidentally. Researchers have found that:

“…One type of moss could have been used to wrap food;
another was likely swallowed when the Iceman drank water during the
last few days of his life; and yet another would have been used as a wound
dressing.

The food-wrapping moss is called Neckera complanata. And the
Iceman probably accidentally ingested a moss called Hymenostylium recurvirostrum
along with some drinking water before he died.

And he could have applied the bogmoss Sphagnum imbricatum as
a wound dressing. That particular bogmoss does not grow, at least today, within
about 30 miles (50 km) of the site where Ötzi was found, the researchers say,
suggesting the Iceman must have been a traveler…”

He just grows more interesting by the second. I’m hoping that they will make another documentary with Sir David Attenborough as the narrator, thus combining my two greatest loves on this planet into one super-fantastical-fun-documentary!…

I need to get out more.

For more details, you can find the mossy article here.