Zoopharmacognosia

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Zoopharmacognosy (in English zoopharmacognosy or animal self medication ) describes behavior in which animals practice self-medication by ingesting plants, soil or insects.

People and observations

Among the pioneers in the field are Daniel Janzen and Michael Huffman, who studied the use of medicines by great apes. The term zoopharmacognosy comes from John P. Berry, then a plant biochemist and PhD student at Cornell University, his PhD supervisor Eloy Rodriguez and the anthropologist Richard W. Wrangham, who observed gorillas in Uganda (Bwindi National Park) in the 1990s .

In older literature, zoopharmacognosy is also used to refer to the branch of pharmacognosy that includes drugs made from animals.

Examples

Honey bees

Honey bees around the world produce an antibacterial resin called propolis . This is a mixture of various collected plant exudates, waxes and glandular secretions. It not only protects against wind and weather, but also against pathogens and microorganisms.

Chimpanzees

Chimpanzees eat rough, bristle-and-barbed plants to clean the intestinal tract. Worms simply stick to the leaves and are excreted.

Tortoises

Tortoises dig in the ground for calcium-containing minerals and eat them. This process does not serve to satiate, but to strengthen the shell of the turtle.

Birds

Great Bustards eat Meloe -Ölkäfer to reduce the parasites in the digestive tract. The contained toxin cantharidin can also harm the bird itself if it ingests too many beetles. The ingestion of the beetles may also stimulate the sex drive of the male bustards.

Over 200 species of birds use formic acid to combat lice infestation . The birds roll around in anthills or pick up individual ants and rub them with their beak along their feathers.

Some birds use special nesting material to prevent infection or insect infestation. Starlings lay their nests with the herb of the wild carrot . A higher hemoglobin content was found in young birds reared in these nests . Studies show that carrot herb reduces the number of mites. The House Sparrow used in some regions of material from the neem tree to cushion its nest, but preferably quinine foliage of peacocks bush when a malaria risk exists.

Parrots

Parrots ingesting clay minerals

Macaws from the Amazon region and many other species of parrots in America, Africa and Papua New Guinea practice what is known as geophagy , i.e. the eating of soil. The birds ingest clayey soil or kaolin during this process . As a result, the birds absorb minerals and the clay can absorb the alkaloids contained in some seed plants in the intestine (see also: healing earth ) .

literature

  • Cindy Engel: Wild health: Health from the wild; how animals keep themselves healthy and what we can learn from them . Animal-Learn-Verlag, Bernau 2004, ISBN 3-936188-17-3 .
  • N. Larkins, S. Wynn: Pharmacognosy: phytomedicines and their mechanisms. In: Vet Clin North Am Small Anim Pract. 34 (1), 2004 Jan, pp. 291-327. Review. PMID 15032133
  • MA Huffman: Animal self-medication and ethno-medicine: exploration and exploitation of the medicinal properties of plants. In: Proc Nutr Soc. 62 (2), 2003 May, pp. 371-381. Review. PMID 14506884
  • JB Githiori, S. Athanasiadou, SM Thamsborg: Use of plants in novel approaches for control of gastrointestinal helminths in livestock with emphasis on small ruminants. In: Vet Parasitol. 139 (4), 2006 Jul 31, pp. 308-320. PMID 16725262
  • I. Hahn, K. Zitterl-Eglseer, C. Franz: Phytomedicine in dogs and cats: web-based survey among veterinarians in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. In: Switzerland Arch Tierheilkd. 147 (3), 2005 Mar, pp. 135-141. PMID 15801625
  • A. Fowler, Y. Koutsioni, V. Sommer: Leaf-swallowing in Nigerian chimpanzees: evidence for assumed self-medication. In: Primates. 48 (1), 2007 Jan, pp. 73-76. Epub 2006 Aug 8. PMID 16897194
  • Peña Alvarado, Marco Vinicio: The anthropological foundations of man, development of medical practices and bio-cultural diversity. Of evolution, incarnation and medicine. Publishing house Dr. Kovac, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-8300-4511-3 .
  • Rajasekar Raman, Sripathi Kandula: Zoopharmacognosy: self medication in wild animals. In: Resonance. March 2008, p. 245, (pdf)
  • Eraldo Medeiros Costa-Neto: Zoopharmacognosy, the self medication behavior of animals. In: Interfaces Cientificas. 1, 2012, pp. 61-72.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ W. Wayt Gibbs: Jungle medicine. Scientific American, December 1996, p. 20.
  2. ↑ C. Bravo, LM Bautista, M. García-París, G. Blanco, JC Alonso: Males of a Strongly Polygynous Species Consume More Poisonous Food than Females . In: PLoS ONE . 9, No. 10, 2014, p. E111057. doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0111057 . PMID 25337911 . PMC 4206510 (free full text).
  3. ^ IS Sánchez-Barbudo, P. Camarero, M. García-Montijano, R. Mateo: Possible cantharidin poisoning of a great bustard (Otis tarda) . In: Toxicon . 59, No. 1, 2012, pp. 100-103. doi : 10.1016 / j.toxicon.2011.10.002 . PMID 22001622 .
  4. ↑ P. Heneberg: On Otis tarda and Marquis de Sade: what motivates male Great Bustards to consume Blister Beetles (Meloidae)? . In: Journal of Ornithology . 57, No. 4, 2016, pp. 1123–1125. doi : 10.1007 / s10336-016-1369-8 .
  5. ^ DH Clayton, ND Wolfe: The adaptive significance of self-medication . In: Trends in Ecology & Evolution . 8, No. 2, 1993, pp. 60-63. doi : 10.1016 / 0169-5347 (93) 90160-q . PMID 21236108 .
  6. ↑ L. Clark, JR Mason: Effect of biologically active plants used as nest material and the derived benefit to starling nestlings . In: Oecologia . 77, No. 2, 1988, pp. 174-180. doi : 10.1007 / bf00379183 . PMID 28310369 .
  7. ^ Costa-Neto, EM: Zoopharmacognosy, the self-medication behavior of animals. . In: Interfaces Científicas-Saúde e Ambiente . 1, No. 1, 2012, pp. 61-72. doi : 10.17564 / 2316-3798.2012v1n1p61-72 .
  8. ↑ Cowen, Ron. 1990. Medicine on the wild side; animals may rely on natural pharmacy. Science News. 138: 280-2; Terrell, Bernadette, and Anne Fennell. 2009. "Oshá (Bear Root): Ligusticum porteri JM Coult. & Rose var. Porteri". Native Plants Journal. 10 (2): 110-117.
  9. ↑ Jann Ichida: Birds use herbs to protect their nests, BJS, Science Blog, Wed, 2004-05-26 . Proceedings of the 104th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. May 26, 2004.
  10. ↑ J. Diamond: Evolutionary biology: Dirty eating for healthy living . In: Nature . 400, No. 6740, 1999, pp. 120-121. doi : 10.1038 / 22014 . PMID 10408435 .