The Great Apes

[Sully]

Zoopharmacognosy (self medication) in the great apes:

Great apes often consume plants that have no nutritional values but which have beneficial effects on gut acidity or combat intestinal parasitic infection.
Chimpanzees sometimes select bitter leaves for chewing. Parasite infection drops noticeably after chimpanzees chew leaves of pith (Vernonia amyddalina), which have anti-parasitic activity against schistosoma, plasmodium and Leishmania. Chimpanzees don't consume this plant on a regular basis, but when they do eat it, it is often in small amounts by individuals that appear ill. Jane Goodall witnessed chimpanzees eating particular bushes, apparently to make themselves vomit. There are reports that chimpanzees swallow whole leaves of particular rough-leaved plants such as Aneilema aequinoctiale; these remove parasitic worms from their intestines.
Chimpanzees sometimes eat the leaves of the herbaceous Desmodium gangeticum. Undigested, non-chewed leaves were recovered in 4% of faecal samples of wild chimpanzees and clumps of sharp-edged grass leaves in 2%. The leaves have a rough surface or sharp-edges and the fact they were not chewed and excreted whole indicates they were not ingested for nutritional purposes. Furthermore, this leaf-swallowing was restricted to the rainy season when parasite re-infections are more common, and parasitic worms (Oesophagostomum stephanostomum) were found together with the leaves.
Chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas eat the fruits of Aframomum angustifolium. Laboratory assays of homogenized fruit and seed extracts show significant anti-microbial activity. Illustrating the medicinal knowledge of some species, apes have been observed selecting a particular part of a medicinal plant by taking off leaves and breaking the stem to suck out the juice. Reply