"Piggy poop balls," the internet's most famous and moving photograph of a pig whose own poop is sitting on its shelf-like balls, has appeared in such storied publications as Gawker, Deadspin, and Gawker since it first appeared online in 2011. And now, it finally has a backstory, thanks to Buzzfeed's Katie Notopoulos, who tracked down Jeff Reardon, the man who photographed the pig with poop on its balls:

I was at The Minnesota State Fair.... we were in the pig barn and I had noticed this guy was very clean for a pig (probably had just been washed for competition?) and had his butt facing us with gigantic balls.

My friends and I had just noticed him and were all looking at his gargantuan balls for no more than 3 seconds when all of a sudden he poops out this huge turd. It fell out his ass, onto his balls and sat on top of them for about 30 seconds before slowly sliding off. I think he made it fall off by taking a couple steps.

Reardon provided Buzzfeed with a post-poop, poop-less photo, which you can see above. By moving the slider to the left, you can see the original. For those of you wondering: those are normal sized balls for a male pig used for breeding, according to a vet interviewed by Notopoulos, who deserves a Pulitzer.

[Buzzfeed]