When Monkeys Use the Forest as a Pharmacy

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Have you ever seen your cat or dog eating grass? They do so because it can help their digestion, and many wild species use natural substances to prevent and control diseases or to repel parasites. This is called "zoopharmacognosy" or, more commonly, animal self-medication.

[...] In the field, we follow several groups of tamarins within fragments of the Atlantic forest to collect behavioral data and fecal samples for subsequent hormonal analysis. Typically, we woke up at dawn and followed the tamarins from the time they left their sleeping site until they returned to sleep, a little before sunset.

During one of these daily studies, we observed them rubbing their bodies on the trunk of a tree covered with resin. At first we thought that the tamarins were marking their territory, a behavior that is common in this species. But we soon realized that it was something else. In fact, the individuals in the group were collectively rubbing the area of the trunk from which the resin emanated and were also coating their fur with it. Our first instinct was to record the scene and take samples of the bark and resin to identify the essence of the tree.

[...] Our botanical expert later confirmed that it was a species of cabreuva, Myroxylon peruiferum, a tree well known in traditional medicine for its antibiotic, anti-inflammatory and anti-parasitic properties.

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