We know a lot about how animals protect themselves against scary big predators, but not quite so much regarding how they keep safe from smaller enemies such as pathogens and parasites, both by instinctive avoidance (ecology of disgust) and also by behaviours that can be described as self-medication.
I've rounded up a few recent examples from this underappreciated part of ecology and poked at the question of where in human evolution ecology ends and the history of medicine begins.
The resulting feature is out now:
Animal health services
Current Biology Volume 33, Issue 9, 8. May 2023, Pages R333-R335
Restricted access to full text and PDF download
(will become open access one year after publication)
Magic link for free access
(first seven weeks only)
See also my Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features.
Great bustards (Otis tarda) have been shown to preferentially consume two species of plants during their mating season that may protect them from both parasites and pathogenic fungi. (Photo: © Carlos Palacín.)
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