Researchers say an orangutan appeared to treat a wound with medicine from a tropical plant. It's the latest example of how some animals attempt to soothe their own ills with remedies found in the wild.
Not a scientific observation, but the zoo I used to work at often planted medicinal plants in primate enclosures because they use them. I think this has been common in zoos for a long while.
Goats know. Sheep know. Equines know. If I make sure the farm animals have access to different flora around the pastures they won’t get ill. It’s nice following the animals around and finding out what they eat, and other ways they use plants. The more time I spend with animals the more I think it’s us humans being the dumb ones.
On that note, watching what great apes do in their natural habitat might teach us a few things about plants.
In the case of wild primates I would believe they know as we would use the word. For Goats, Sheep, Or Equines, I have to imagine its closer to how we get cravings for foods sometimes, because we have some sort of nutrient deficiency that food would correct.
That would lead into philosophical discussions as to what knowledge means. I do see that we have the tendency of assuming others have less agency or are less aware of their actions than us. We do that as individuals and as a species, so I tend to be careful. I also wish I had useful food cravings, mine don’t tend to be too healthy.
I don’t see how this is philosophical. One is an instinct, which is passed down genetically, and the other is knowledge, gained through experience. They are two distinct processes.
What do we really know about animal and plant communication? They might very well be talking to each other. Don’t be too quick to assume that as a human you would even know how other consciousnesses, let alone ways of communication, could work.
People who work closely with animals seem to lose their ‘human smart, monke stupid’ attitude relatively quickly, and those who study non-human consciousness deeply seem to make one groundbreaking discovery after the other these days.
We have to stop gatekeeping knowledge and start listening.
I agree, research confirms that intra-species communication between animals and plants is real, though the term “communication” often does a lot of heavy-lifting in those studies. And while it’s possible that goats have some built-in pheromone message encoder for transmitting complex ideas, such as “Daaandelion = helth”, which we simply have not yet discovered, it is unlikely. At best, goats can demonstrate to other goats what to eat by example. However, even a solitary goat on a farm, one that has never seen other goats, will instinctively seek out specific plants when it’s deficient in certain nutrients. It doesn’t require a huge leap of faith to assume that this behavior extends to medicinal plants as well.
In other words, the goat doesn’t know that it needs to eat a certain plant; it feels like it needs to eat a certain plant.
This principle even applies to humans, as babies will often eat dirt if they have a calcium deficiency. Clearly, they were never taught to do this, neither by adults (hopefully) nor by other babies.
Humans don’t intrinsically know what to eat to for nutrient deficiencies, that’s a learned behavior based on finding out what the symptoms of a given deficiency are, and learning which foods have the necessary nutrients.
That only informs about your bias, which comes from the sum of knowledge and experience you do have. Historically we know there have been planty of cases of people getting scurvy simply because they did not know better to eat the right foods, and did not appear to crave them either.
Cravings appear to have more to do with pleasure, and alleviating stress.
The difference might be in primates in captivity learning from humans using tools around them all day every day. Primate see primate do trial and error.
One seen doing it spontaneously in nature might be more significant.
The difference might be in primates in captivity learning from humans using tools around them all day every day. Primate see primate do trial and error.
I don’t get it. I highly doubt zookeepers tend to pick medicinal plants from the habitats in lieu of popping a painkiller. Otherwise how would using a shovel teach a monkey to use plants to treat a scratch for example?
I don’t mean it that literally. I mean just observing swaths of people putting straws into drinks, putting ointments on scrapes, etc might make them extrapolate and try similar actions using what’s available to them.
It’s not much of a reach for a primate seeing a human manipulate and dig with a shovel, and use that as inspiration to manipulate a bamboo shoot to scratch their own back.
We homosapiens spent 180,000 ish years wandering around in the dirt like idiots before it occurred to some of us that we could grow food in one place, thus beginning the path to civilization. Even we need examples to extrapolate from.
Not a scientific observation, but the zoo I used to work at often planted medicinal plants in primate enclosures because they use them. I think this has been common in zoos for a long while.
Goats know. Sheep know. Equines know. If I make sure the farm animals have access to different flora around the pastures they won’t get ill. It’s nice following the animals around and finding out what they eat, and other ways they use plants. The more time I spend with animals the more I think it’s us humans being the dumb ones.
On that note, watching what great apes do in their natural habitat might teach us a few things about plants.
In the case of wild primates I would believe they know as we would use the word. For Goats, Sheep, Or Equines, I have to imagine its closer to how we get cravings for foods sometimes, because we have some sort of nutrient deficiency that food would correct.
That would lead into philosophical discussions as to what knowledge means. I do see that we have the tendency of assuming others have less agency or are less aware of their actions than us. We do that as individuals and as a species, so I tend to be careful. I also wish I had useful food cravings, mine don’t tend to be too healthy.
I don’t see how this is philosophical. One is an instinct, which is passed down genetically, and the other is knowledge, gained through experience. They are two distinct processes.
What do we really know about animal and plant communication? They might very well be talking to each other. Don’t be too quick to assume that as a human you would even know how other consciousnesses, let alone ways of communication, could work.
People who work closely with animals seem to lose their ‘human smart, monke stupid’ attitude relatively quickly, and those who study non-human consciousness deeply seem to make one groundbreaking discovery after the other these days.
We have to stop gatekeeping knowledge and start listening.
I agree, research confirms that intra-species communication between animals and plants is real, though the term “communication” often does a lot of heavy-lifting in those studies. And while it’s possible that goats have some built-in pheromone message encoder for transmitting complex ideas, such as “Daaandelion = helth”, which we simply have not yet discovered, it is unlikely. At best, goats can demonstrate to other goats what to eat by example. However, even a solitary goat on a farm, one that has never seen other goats, will instinctively seek out specific plants when it’s deficient in certain nutrients. It doesn’t require a huge leap of faith to assume that this behavior extends to medicinal plants as well.
In other words, the goat doesn’t know that it needs to eat a certain plant; it feels like it needs to eat a certain plant.
This principle even applies to humans, as babies will often eat dirt if they have a calcium deficiency. Clearly, they were never taught to do this, neither by adults (hopefully) nor by other babies.
Do we know that for sure, though? We’d have to isolate some goats in an experiment to determine it.
Humans don’t intrinsically know what to eat to for nutrient deficiencies, that’s a learned behavior based on finding out what the symptoms of a given deficiency are, and learning which foods have the necessary nutrients.
Then you must never have had cravings, it’s very instinctive and at most relies on you having eaten something once before.
Some days i just wake up and the only thing i want to eat is carrots, or whatever. It’s not at all like getting scurvy and deciding to eat vitamin C.
That only informs about your bias, which comes from the sum of knowledge and experience you do have. Historically we know there have been planty of cases of people getting scurvy simply because they did not know better to eat the right foods, and did not appear to crave them either.
Cravings appear to have more to do with pleasure, and alleviating stress.
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/nutrient-deficiencies-cravings
The difference might be in primates in captivity learning from humans using tools around them all day every day. Primate see primate do trial and error.
One seen doing it spontaneously in nature might be more significant.
Nah, I’ve never been in the monkey house chewing ginger roots, they know this stuff, or work it out, not sure which really.
I don’t get it. I highly doubt zookeepers tend to pick medicinal plants from the habitats in lieu of popping a painkiller. Otherwise how would using a shovel teach a monkey to use plants to treat a scratch for example?
Who is using medicinal plants from the ape enclosure in a zoo setting?
I don’t mean it that literally. I mean just observing swaths of people putting straws into drinks, putting ointments on scrapes, etc might make them extrapolate and try similar actions using what’s available to them.
It’s not much of a reach for a primate seeing a human manipulate and dig with a shovel, and use that as inspiration to manipulate a bamboo shoot to scratch their own back.
We homosapiens spent 180,000 ish years wandering around in the dirt like idiots before it occurred to some of us that we could grow food in one place, thus beginning the path to civilization. Even we need examples to extrapolate from.
Monke see; monke do.