A few months back, a study was published about the bacterium endemic to the human inner elbow. The news feeds all spun the news with great surprise that an organisms would have such a specific habitat, and that the human body was segregated into microclimates, each with their own unique fauna.

I hail the news as important scientific verification. But I stop short of surprise. It should be apparent that the organisms that inhabit and pollute the underarm do so in a microclimate and with results far different than those who create the foot stink 4.5 feet away. It wouldn't take much to verify that there are quite a different set of inhabitants beneath the toenails producing the clumpy white hubris.

I am curious and would like to see the investigation of how much the inner elbow microbiota have in common with those of the inner knee, or whether the population of the upper arm has relatives on the upper thigh. These spaces appear to have a similar ecology.

I would like to know more about the symbiotic relationships. If the inner elbow bacterium process raw fats into moisturizers, is dry skin caused by hypervigilant bathing? Could it be treated by rubbing elbows (so to speak) with another's perfect complexion? Do we receive some unknown benefit from the microbes that cause tooth decay?

What about the organisms that thrive in body parts that are of recent creation such as the orifices created by piercings. I haven't heard evidence of other species or even prehistoric man intentionally piercing the skin, I believe it started with the ancient Egyptians. That's just a few thousand years for the bacteria to migrate from some other skin fold and evolve to favorably inhabit the earlobe.

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