(gentle instrumental music)

Everyone knows Hawaii as a tropical paradise

with cranky volcanoes

and fabulous white sand beaches.

What most people don't realize

is that those beaches are almost entirely

composed of fish poop.

That's right.

You heard me, fish poop.

Enter the parrotfish,

a bizarre creature with an appetite

for the algae that grows on choral.

The fish gnaws the stuff off

with those beak-like teeth,

but in the process,

also strips calcium carbonate from the reef,

and I'm talking a lot of it.

A single parrotfish can eat enough calcium carbonate

to produce 800 pounds of sand a year,

and over in Australia,

another species can lay down a ton of it,

like literally a ton of it,

but if you can believe it,

pooping out beaches isn't even the most intriguing thing

about the parrotfish.

It's sleeping bag of snot is.

Like a narcoleptic that's accidentally taken sleeping pills,

the parrotfish is an unusually heavy sleeper,

and that might put it in danger of predation.

As a counter measure,

it'll tuck itself into the reef

and excrete a balloon of mucus.

This bubble could serve to mask its scent

or work as an alarm

when a predator bumps against it.

Parrotfish also get busy

in a very bizarre way.

All of them are actually born female

and then join a school,

but as they grow,

the largest female will transform into a male

and adopt a beautiful color scheme.

Now he's got himself a harem

that he keeps watch over,

chasing away rival males

with a mind to get with his ladies,

all of them constantly making sand.

So the next time you're enjoying

a beautiful Hawaiian beach,

raise an umbrella drink to drowsy parrotfish,

and maybe think about putting those sandals back on.

(gentle instrumental music)