How do wild animals take care of themselves
Answers
Answer:
Various animals handle being sick in all kinds of ways depending on what is making them sick. One thing most of them have in common is to rest/sleep but they all do what they have to do to increase their chances of survival. Dogs will sometimes eat grass when they are having digestive problems for example.
Below I found a good article about this at: Animal Self-Medication: Do Wild Animals Heal Themselves?
Chimpanzee in Tanzania that get infected with parasites eat Vernonia which was found to have anti-parasitic and anti-microbial properties. Both Vernonia and Aspilia have been used in Tanzanian folk medicine for stomach upsets and fevers.
Only the sick chimpanzees that eat the plants and the chimps often make faces of dislike as they chew the Vernonia pith, indicating that they are not doing this for fun; healthy animals would find the bitter taste unpalatable.
Scientists studying baboons at the Awash Falls in Ethiopia noted that although the tree Balanites aegyptiaca (Desert date) grew all around the falls, only the baboons living below the falls ate the tree’s fruit. These baboons were exposed to a parasitic worm found in water-snails. Balanites fruit is known to repel the snails. Baboons living above the falls were not in contact with the water-snails and therefore had no need of the medicinal fruit.
Many animals eat minerals like clay or charcoal for their curative properties. Colobus monkeys on the island of Zanzibar have been observed stealing and eating charcoal from human bonfires. The charcoal counteracts toxic phenols produced by the mango and almond leaves which make up their diet.
Some species of South American parrot and macaw are known to eat soil with a high kaolin content. The parrots’ diet contains toxins because of the fruit seeds they eat. (Even the humble apple seed contains cyanide.) The kaolin clay absorbs the toxins and carries them out of the birds' digestive systems, leaving the parrots unharmed by the poisons. Kaolin has been used for centuries in many cultures as a remedy for human gastrointestinal upset.
Survival of the medicated
So, how do animals know how to heal themselves? Some scientists believe that evolution has given animals the innate ability to choose the correct herbal medicines. In terms of natural selection, animals who could find medicinal substances in the wild were more likely to survive. Other observations have shown that, particularly among primates, medicinal skills appear to be taught and learned. Adult females are often seen batting their infant's hand from a particular leaf or stem as if to say “No, not that one.”
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Answer:
By eating other small animals