Lemurs have been spotted chewing on toxic millipedes then rubbing the leggy critters all over their genitals and anuses. The bizarre behaviour may be a way to combat parasites that would otherwise set up home in the lemurs鈥� guts.
In November 2016, of the Leibniz Institute for Primate Research in G枚ttingen, Germany was observing red-fronted lemurs () in a forest in central Madagascar. The first heavy rains had just arrived, prompting many millipedes to emerge from underground.
Peckre watched as an adult female rubbed her tail, genitals and anal region with a millipede she was holding in her hand. The lemur then gave the millipede a quick chew before rubbing it on herself again. She repeated this several times. At one point she dribbled a large volume of orange liquid from her mouth. Eventually she ate the millipede. 鈥淭his was a completely opportunistic observation,鈥� says Peckre.
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Over the course of that day, five other lemurs did the same thing: they picked up a millipede and alternated chewing it and rubbing it on their bodies around their anuses. All the millipedes belonged to the genus , which like many millipedes can secrete defensive toxins.
Peckre and her colleagues suspect the lemurs were self-medicating. Red-fronted lemurs are exposed to a range of gastrointestinal parasites, many of which are transmitted through faeces that the lemurs unwittingly eat.
Smothering their anal regions with millipede toxins might kill these parasites, helping the lemurs either treat an infection or avoid contracting it in the first place.
Self-medicating like this is proving to be remarkable common. 鈥淲e are just starting to discover how widespread,鈥� says Peckre.
Famously 鈥渃lever鈥� animals like chimpanzees do it, which we might expect, but so do ants. Some monkeys also rub themselves with millipede toxins, probably .
The red-fronted lemurs are not the only lemurs that make use of millipedes. are known to .
It鈥檚 not clear if there is a health benefit to this, but suggests that they get high off the toxins and rapidly become intoxicated.
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