Pet Forum / Miscellaneous / Animal Health / June 2006

           Chimpanzee's Smarter Than Dog Trainers And Veterinarians
<{) ' ~ )  >

HOWEDY People,

Even Chimps know what to DO and NOT DO cause IT WORKS
or DON'T WORK by observing other Chimps in the same same
same same circumstances:

Chimp Shamans
Date: 2002-07-22 13:32:21 PST

HOWEDY People,

Interesting stuff. From the article:

THE MEDICINAL USE OF PLANTS BY
CHIMPANZEES IN THE WILD

Michael A. Huffman, Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University,
Inuyama, Aichi 484 JAPAN

Chemo-ethology of the Hominoid Inteteractions of Medicinal Plants and
Parasites.

An assay of the plant samples collected in November 1991 after use by
an
ill female chimpanzee confirmed that the two most bioactive
constituents
in this plant, vernodalin, and vernonioside B1 were present. The highly

toxic compound, vernodalin, was found only in the leaves, not in the
pith of
the plant she used, which instead contained significant amounts of
vernonioside B1. This same pattern was latter verified in analyses made

on other V. amygdalina specimens collected at various locations in
Mahale during different seasons.

We believe that because chimpanzees rarely use anything but the pith,
and discard the bark and leaves in the process, they have learned to
differentiate between the plant parts that contain compounds harmful to

them from those parts that contain compounds of benefit. Observations
have shown that young chimpanzees will closely copy the processing
techniques of both bitter pith-chewing and leaf-swallowing performed by

their sick mothers or those nearby.

In general chimpanzees tend to be very conservative in their feeding
habits. As part of growing up, they have to learn what and how to eat
by
watching the behavior of their elders. In this way, knowledge and
experience of the group is passed down in the form of behavioral
tradition,
a process which allows many individuals to benefit from the experience
of
a few. In doing so, as in the case of medicinal plant use, the dangers
of
individual experimentation with poisonous plants is limited to a few.

This resembles somewhat the way in which Mohamedi's grandfather learned

from trial and error about mulengelele and the experience was passed on

to his grandson. However, there is one big difference. Chimpanzees do
not teach each other or encourage a sick individual to take medicine.

This new discipline has grown out of the scientific endeavor to
understand more about the ways in which animals may be treating
themselves with the use of plants. Due to the constraints and
difficulties of systematic research of this kind on wild animal
populations, our knowledge is still limited. Regardless, there
truly seems to be something to the age-old idea that animals
have potentially important lessons to teach about medicinal plants.