The insides of your navel are home to thousands and thousands of bacteria. In fact, the size of the ecosystem that these bacteria form in your belly button can be compared to the size of an entire rainforest! Researchers from North Carolina State University recently found that the average person's belly button typically harbors between 60 to 70 species of bacteria. They collected skin bacteria from the belly buttons of over 150 diverse test subjects throughout the United States. One thing they discovered is that the number and species of organisms per person varies greatly. And what's even more intriguing is so far they don't see that the differences among individuals match up easily with gender, ethnicity, age, or even washing frequency. I don't know about you but I'll never see belly buttons the same ever again!
Use the interactive charts below to explore the dataset