What is “intelligence” ? The ability to deal with one’s surroundings. Let us just take one example of animal intelligence : their ability to be so conscious of the world that they know which plant to eat when they don’t feel well. Animals healing themselves with natural remedies have been documented from ancient times. The native Indians of North America watched wild bears use the roots of the Lingusticum plants with such obvious benefits, that they named the plant “bear medicine”.
Animal bodies , like ours , cannot manufacture most of the chemicals they need to function. Instead they must rely on plants to directly or indirectly provide them with the essentials of life. Animal health is therefore intimately dependent on plant chemistry. The point is : humans have very little idea even now which plant is good for what. But animals know and their behaviour is divided into nutritional and medicinal. High-energy foods, eaten primarily for the purpose of fuel intake, are at one end, and substances considered nonnutrients, eaten primarily for medicinal purposes, are at the other. When laboratory scientists started to explore how animals select their diets, they found that rats that are presented with a range of foods will select a nutritionally balanced diet. This ability, termed nutritional wisdom, can be applied to the way in which wild animals manage to meet their nutritional needs from foods that are often changing in composition, availability, and location. Although fallow deer are considered to be grazers, in temperate environments they generally graze only in summer. In autumn, when the grass dies back, they switch to browsing fruits; then in winter, when the fruits are exhausted, they browse on brambles and ivy. When the grass returns in spring, they stop browsing and start grazing again. As the food supply changes, they strive to obtain a balanced intake of nutrients and energy. This ability is not limited to mammals; insects can regulate their intake of sugars and amino acids by changing what they eat. Often animals have to compensate for changes in the nutritional quality of their food. Aye-ayes are primates of Madagascar, that eat four main foods: seeds, nectar, fungi and insect larvae. When the energy content of these foods drops during the cold season, aye-ayes double the amount they eat. Camels in Kenya, during drought conditions, when their ordinary diet dies back, concentrate more on evergreen shrubs and salt-rich plants. Along with rhinos, they start eating water-rich Euphorbia plants. Animals do not merely manage to select a balanced diet from highly variable foods; they constantly adapt to their own changing circumstances, sometimes in advance of a change. For instance, birds preparing for migration eat for extra reserves of fat for their long, strenuous journey.
Now scientists have begun to study the action animals take to deal with health hazards. Wild animals never poison themselves, and considering that an estimated 40 percent of plants contain some kind of dangerous chemical, animals in the wild are amazingly adept at avoiding the worst.
In 1972 Harvard University anthropologist Richard Wrangham studied sick Tanzanian chimpanzees searching for Aspilia plants just after dawn. The chimps would pick and eat them one at a time. Being careful not to chew, the chimps folded the leaves, rolled them around in their mouths, then gulped them down. The leaves were later excreted whole, completely undigested. They were not being eaten as food but as medicine for healthy animals never eat them.
To date, experts have documented 30 plant species whose hairy leaves are "swallowed whole," by chimpanzees , bonobos , gorillas – and humans . Africans use the Aspilia plant, for lumbago, sciatica, scurvy, malaria, and rheumatism Rubia cordifolia is the antiparasitic plant Ugandans use to relieve stomach ailments and Aneilema aequinoctiale for fevers, earaches, and to stop bleeding. Lippia plicata is ingested by Africans for dysentery and malaria. And Ficus exasperata is the antidote for ulcer sufferers. Both animals and people select the same plants for the same problems.
Biologist Mike Huffman studying Tanzanian Chimpanzees saw a female Chimp who was clearly not well. She lagged behind her group, moaned in pain and eventually lay motionless on her nest. She had no appetite with the exception of one particular plant, called Bitter Leaf . She removed the bark and chewed on the inner pith of the stem. The very next day she was up and running around . The biologist found that the local tribal people used Bitter Leaf to treat stomach cramps , malaria and intestinal parasites. When Bitter Leaf was studied by scientists , the part the Chimpanzees were eating revealed 13 new Chemical Compounds with medicinal properties.
Bears before hibernation and snow geese before migration also turn to plants to clear out intestinal worms . Domestic dogs and cats chew grass, which has the same cleansing effect. Clay assuages diarrhoea and binds to many plant poisons. Among the most famous clay-eaters are the parrots of the Amazon who perch together in their hundreds to excavate the best clay layer along a riverbank. Modern laboratory studies have found that poisoned rats turn to eating clay .A type of clay regularly mined by mountain gorillas in Rwanda is very similar to the kaolin sold in chemists for upset stomachs. Another good source of clay are termite mounds, and sick chimpanzees often break off chunks from them.
Till 1972 the notion that animals might be deliberately treating themselves with natural medicines was resisted, because this would have credited animals with human-like intelligence . But as the researches on chimpanzees in Tanzanaia continued they discovered the deliberateness with which these animals chose plants to deal with injury, infection, parasites and biting insects . The studies spread to other animals.
Just as we don't usually take aspirins unless we have a headache, so animals tend to avoid medicinal plants unless they need them. At the Awash falls in Ethiopia, for example, there are two baboon populations, one above and one below. The tree Balanites aegyptiaca, the fruit of which is used by the locals as a de-worming treatment, grows in both areas. But only the lower baboons, who are exposed to a parasite spread by water snails, eat it.
A cave on Mount Elgon, an extinct volcano in Kenya, has been mined by generations of elephants. Access to it is tricky, but the animals are willing to risk death to get there. Once inside they dig out the soft rock with their tusks, grind it with their teeth and then swallow it.The rocks contain 100 times more sodium than they can get from the plants they normally eat, as well as potassium and calcium. Sodium is vital for all metabolic processes, especially for handling the toxins which are an inevitable part of a plant diet Red colobus monkeys on Zanzibar Island like the leaves of the Indian almond and mango trees whose leaves are protein rich. However, these are also high in phenols, which interfere with the monkeys' digestion. What could these animals eat to counteract the toxicity of the leaves while retaining their nutritional benefits? Charcoal briquettes ! Analysis by the University of Wyoming scientists showed that the toxic phenols adhere to the charcoals, while proteins remain free for absorption by the digestive tract Zoopharmacognosy, or animal self-medication is a new field in biology. It explores the range of ways animals use to keep themselves healthy, doing a better job of it than humans do. Instead of repeating inanely that animals are not intelligent , we should be treating them with respect and learning from them in their natural habitat
Animal bodies , like ours , cannot manufacture most of the chemicals they need to function. Instead they must rely on plants to directly or indirectly provide them with the essentials of life. Animal health is therefore intimately dependent on plant chemistry. The point is : humans have very little idea even now which plant is good for what. But animals know and their behaviour is divided into nutritional and medicinal. High-energy foods, eaten primarily for the purpose of fuel intake, are at one end, and substances considered nonnutrients, eaten primarily for medicinal purposes, are at the other. When laboratory scientists started to explore how animals select their diets, they found that rats that are presented with a range of foods will select a nutritionally balanced diet. This ability, termed nutritional wisdom, can be applied to the way in which wild animals manage to meet their nutritional needs from foods that are often changing in composition, availability, and location. Although fallow deer are considered to be grazers, in temperate environments they generally graze only in summer. In autumn, when the grass dies back, they switch to browsing fruits; then in winter, when the fruits are exhausted, they browse on brambles and ivy. When the grass returns in spring, they stop browsing and start grazing again. As the food supply changes, they strive to obtain a balanced intake of nutrients and energy. This ability is not limited to mammals; insects can regulate their intake of sugars and amino acids by changing what they eat. Often animals have to compensate for changes in the nutritional quality of their food. Aye-ayes are primates of Madagascar, that eat four main foods: seeds, nectar, fungi and insect larvae. When the energy content of these foods drops during the cold season, aye-ayes double the amount they eat. Camels in Kenya, during drought conditions, when their ordinary diet dies back, concentrate more on evergreen shrubs and salt-rich plants. Along with rhinos, they start eating water-rich Euphorbia plants. Animals do not merely manage to select a balanced diet from highly variable foods; they constantly adapt to their own changing circumstances, sometimes in advance of a change. For instance, birds preparing for migration eat for extra reserves of fat for their long, strenuous journey.
Now scientists have begun to study the action animals take to deal with health hazards. Wild animals never poison themselves, and considering that an estimated 40 percent of plants contain some kind of dangerous chemical, animals in the wild are amazingly adept at avoiding the worst.
In 1972 Harvard University anthropologist Richard Wrangham studied sick Tanzanian chimpanzees searching for Aspilia plants just after dawn. The chimps would pick and eat them one at a time. Being careful not to chew, the chimps folded the leaves, rolled them around in their mouths, then gulped them down. The leaves were later excreted whole, completely undigested. They were not being eaten as food but as medicine for healthy animals never eat them.
To date, experts have documented 30 plant species whose hairy leaves are "swallowed whole," by chimpanzees , bonobos , gorillas – and humans . Africans use the Aspilia plant, for lumbago, sciatica, scurvy, malaria, and rheumatism Rubia cordifolia is the antiparasitic plant Ugandans use to relieve stomach ailments and Aneilema aequinoctiale for fevers, earaches, and to stop bleeding. Lippia plicata is ingested by Africans for dysentery and malaria. And Ficus exasperata is the antidote for ulcer sufferers. Both animals and people select the same plants for the same problems.
Biologist Mike Huffman studying Tanzanian Chimpanzees saw a female Chimp who was clearly not well. She lagged behind her group, moaned in pain and eventually lay motionless on her nest. She had no appetite with the exception of one particular plant, called Bitter Leaf . She removed the bark and chewed on the inner pith of the stem. The very next day she was up and running around . The biologist found that the local tribal people used Bitter Leaf to treat stomach cramps , malaria and intestinal parasites. When Bitter Leaf was studied by scientists , the part the Chimpanzees were eating revealed 13 new Chemical Compounds with medicinal properties.
Bears before hibernation and snow geese before migration also turn to plants to clear out intestinal worms . Domestic dogs and cats chew grass, which has the same cleansing effect. Clay assuages diarrhoea and binds to many plant poisons. Among the most famous clay-eaters are the parrots of the Amazon who perch together in their hundreds to excavate the best clay layer along a riverbank. Modern laboratory studies have found that poisoned rats turn to eating clay .A type of clay regularly mined by mountain gorillas in Rwanda is very similar to the kaolin sold in chemists for upset stomachs. Another good source of clay are termite mounds, and sick chimpanzees often break off chunks from them.
Till 1972 the notion that animals might be deliberately treating themselves with natural medicines was resisted, because this would have credited animals with human-like intelligence . But as the researches on chimpanzees in Tanzanaia continued they discovered the deliberateness with which these animals chose plants to deal with injury, infection, parasites and biting insects . The studies spread to other animals.
Just as we don't usually take aspirins unless we have a headache, so animals tend to avoid medicinal plants unless they need them. At the Awash falls in Ethiopia, for example, there are two baboon populations, one above and one below. The tree Balanites aegyptiaca, the fruit of which is used by the locals as a de-worming treatment, grows in both areas. But only the lower baboons, who are exposed to a parasite spread by water snails, eat it.
A cave on Mount Elgon, an extinct volcano in Kenya, has been mined by generations of elephants. Access to it is tricky, but the animals are willing to risk death to get there. Once inside they dig out the soft rock with their tusks, grind it with their teeth and then swallow it.The rocks contain 100 times more sodium than they can get from the plants they normally eat, as well as potassium and calcium. Sodium is vital for all metabolic processes, especially for handling the toxins which are an inevitable part of a plant diet Red colobus monkeys on Zanzibar Island like the leaves of the Indian almond and mango trees whose leaves are protein rich. However, these are also high in phenols, which interfere with the monkeys' digestion. What could these animals eat to counteract the toxicity of the leaves while retaining their nutritional benefits? Charcoal briquettes ! Analysis by the University of Wyoming scientists showed that the toxic phenols adhere to the charcoals, while proteins remain free for absorption by the digestive tract Zoopharmacognosy, or animal self-medication is a new field in biology. It explores the range of ways animals use to keep themselves healthy, doing a better job of it than humans do. Instead of repeating inanely that animals are not intelligent , we should be treating them with respect and learning from them in their natural habitat
Maneka Gandhi
