Yahoo News Scientists have found that chimpanzees are turning to bat feces for nutrients in concentrated areas of deforestation, which could have implications for human epidemics, reports Mongabay.
What’s happening?
In the Budongo Forest in Uganda, animals — including chimpanzees, monkeys, and antelope — rely on minerals from decaying palm trees, per the report. However, between 2006 and 2012, these trees were excessively cut down to use as strings for tobacco leaves to dry on.
Because chimpanzees crave sodium, they turn to other means to get it, including chewing on cement bricks. According to a new study published in Communications Biology, some animals have made changes to their diet to include the guano, or animal droppings, of bats.
The study found 839 instances of three species feeding on bat guano from July 2017 to October 2017 and from September 2018 to April 2019. This behavior had reportedly never been documented among forest-dwelling mammals before.