Animals brought to heal
★ ANIMALS’ amazing natural instinct was shown yesterday when we reported on a smart orangutan who became the first to be spotted using a medicinal plant on a wound. The primate named Rakus, who lives in South Aceh, Indonesia, knew to chew some of the anti-inflammatory Akar Kuning plant and dab it onto a facial sore. Here KIM CARR reveals 12 more critters who are able to heal themselves...
1 When an itchy insect bite starts to irritate, brown bears make a paste from spit and chewed oshá root to stop the impulse to scratch.
2 By getting their big teeth round the leaves of Aspilia plants and swilling the contents of the mush around their mouths, chimpanzees know the act will kill off parasitic worms in their guts.
3 More than 200 birds have learned to roll over and annoy ant nests so they will spray their formic acid over them to kill off blood-sucking bird lice.
4 Ants themselves take resin from conifer trees to line their nests due to its antibacterial and antifungal properties, which keeps their homes free of infection.
5 Spiny mice can make a quick getaway when attacked because if their skin is torn, they simply grow back more including hair, follicles and sweat glands. Boffins are busy trying to figure out if their tissue could be used to help human regeneration as well.
6 Ever found a pile of bile with the odd blade of grass in your home? It’s something dog and cat owners will be familiar with. They eat grass to help ease gut trouble.
7 Bats and parrots nibble on dirt and clay because they know the calcium, magnesium and zinc found inside is as good as that multivitamin which humans pop daily.
8 Do you light a citronella candle when on holiday to keep pesky mozzies at bay? Capuchin monkeys don’t have matches or, erm, candles, so spread citronella and citrus directly onto their coats for the same purpose.
9 Thanks to the chloroplasts in the algae they feast on, sea slugs take energy from the sun to make themselves virtually invincible. When attacked they can decapitate themselves and wait for a new body to grow while the old one’s heart will continue beating minus a head.
10 Sea cucumbers push out all of their internal organs in a process known as evisceration to make a sticky mess which warns off predators. While they can’t pull them back in again they just grow a new set in between one to five weeks.
11 If they get bitten from the back end lizards are able to cut off their own tails and within a few months a replacement will have grown using cartilage not bones.
12 When they lose an arm, starfish are able to grow another. Sometimes if the one which has been separated has a part of the central disc of their body it can develop into an entirely new starfish.