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Paging Dr Chimp: the medical secrets we can learn from apes, birds and even butterflies

Guardian
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Nutrition label

78% Informative

Jaap de Roode is the author of Doctors By Nature , a new book by the US -based Dutch academic.

The book explores how animals use natural medicines to combat disease.

It is one of many fascinating examples of animals medicating themselves revealed in the book.

The study was published by the Dutch academic at Emory University in Atlanta .

Primatologists have found that 25 different wild primate species across 26 countries use plants with well-described medicinal properties.

Domesticated animals are smart enough to possess what scientists call nutritional wisdom’ Worm-infested livestock seek out tannin-rich shrubs, which, when eaten, can kill worms.

For every lost animal, we lose another potential pharmacist or doctor,” De Roode says. “You can protect nature because you think it’s the right thing to do. Or you can do it because it also helps us, and those things come together.”.