Animals And Drugs

[steve_bank]

Watched a show on wild life and drug use. Very interesting. National Geographic. Apparently intoxication is wide spread from birds to mammals.

The use of botanicals is widespread in wild species. Monkeys rub millipedes in their fur, the toxic secretion kills parasites. There is a bird that does it with termites.

Reindeer like a mushroom, alkaloids are widespread. They will act strange like running in circles.

Some monkeys have a fondness for fermented fruit, some get addicted. Mountain sheep get high on a lichen.

Pa rots,, monkeys and others eat a clay that has anti parasite agents. Chimps eat the leaves of a plant that kills parasites.

Not hard to see how human knowledge got started. Serendipity, observation, and mimicry passes on the knowledge.

 

[lpetrich]

There's even a name for that activity. Zoopharmacology. It has made Wikipedia as  Zoopharmacognosy.

Whether animals truly self-medicate remains a somewhat controversial subject because early evidence is mostly circumstantial or anecdotal,[4] however, more recent examinations have adopted an experimental, hypothesis-driven approach.

It seems like that great bugbear of animal-behavior research: anthropomorphism. But there is good evidence of a variety of species self-medicating.

The Alcoholics of the Animal World | Science | Smithsonian starting off with drunken moose and elk.

 

[steve_bank]

There's even a name for that activity. Zoopharmacology. It has made Wikipedia as  Zoopharmacognosy.

Whether animals truly self-medicate remains a somewhat controversial subject because early evidence is mostly circumstantial or anecdotal,[4] however, more recent examinations have adopted an experimental, hypothesis-driven approach.

It seems like that great bugbear of animal-behavior research: anthropomorphism. But there is good evidence of a variety of species self-medicating.

The Alcoholics of the Animal World | Science | Smithsonian starting off with drunken moose and elk.

Granted, but conclusions can be drawn.





A dog in Australia licks a toxic frog repeatedly then acts strange.

An orangutan in an Asian zoo smokes. He stared mimicking smoking watching visitors. Somebody tossed him a cigarette and became a smoker.

Ever see a dog running and biting while sleeping? Hard not to see it as dreaming.

Cats and catnip.

Way back in the 90s I rented a room in house. The owner had two parrots. male and female. She kept them in separate cages. In the same cage the male would nuzzle up only to be knocked back by a wing of the female.

 

[rousseau]

There's even a name for that activity. Zoopharmacology. It has made Wikipedia as  Zoopharmacognosy.

Whether animals truly self-medicate remains a somewhat controversial subject because early evidence is mostly circumstantial or anecdotal,[4] however, more recent examinations have adopted an experimental, hypothesis-driven approach.

It seems like that great bugbear of animal-behavior research: anthropomorphism. But there is good evidence of a variety of species self-medicating.

The Alcoholics of the Animal World | Science | Smithsonian starting off with drunken moose and elk.

In some sense it's a bit anthropocentric to think that animals wouldn't consume stuff based on intoxication. The insinuation that any non-human animal is just an unthinking automaton, and omg this animal is showing emotion or doing something we do is always something I've found a bit odd.

Many other mammal species are quite intelligent and have a large range of behavior.

 

[steve_bank]

There is a flip side. Us humans use ourselves as a standard to judge the quality of life of other critters.

I took a vacation to Alaska and a day cruise on Seward By. Sea otters seemed quite content snoozing floating on their backs.