Drunken Birds and Other Self-Medics Quiz

Answer: European starling

Queen Anne's lace or wild carrot (Daucus carota) is one of several plants preferentially selected by this bird to line its nest prior to laying eggs. The antibacterial and insecticidal properties of the plant appear to help reduce the number of nest lice and parasites that afflict hatchlings. Bird's-nest root is an older alternative name for the plant.

Answer: Red deer

When calcium and phosphorus are in short supply, any source will do for some herbivores. Red deer on the Scottish island of Rhum have been observed removing the leg bones from live manx shearwater chicks (leaving the skin and feet still attached) in order to get these minerals. Sheep on the Shetland island of Foula are not so delicate, removing heads, wings or legs from unfortunate Arctic tern chicks.

For many years archaeologists assumed that teeth marks on fossilised antlers and bones were due to prehistoric humans, however it seems the reindeer were eating their own antlers. In Canadian national parks it is illegal to collect cast antlers, one reason being that various small animals such as squirrels and porcupines use them as a mineral resource.

It is believed to be primarily phosphorus rather than calcium that the animals are seeking. Phosphorus and calcium are both required for bone and tissue development.

Answer: Elephant

Mount Elgon in western Kenya contains minerals that have been mined by elephants for centuries. The result is a number of caves partly carved from the rock, the longest being nearly 200 metres deep. At the end of the rainy season, the elephants make night-time visits to the caves and use their tusks to gouge out lumps of rock which they then chew.

Why? The rocks are rich in minerals such as sodium, calcium and magnesium. Some speculate that this supplements their mineral-poor plant-based diet. Others suggest that the luxuriant plant growth following the rains causes constipation. The sodium in the rocks is in the form of sodium sulphate, also known as Glauber's salt, which is a laxative.

Other animals, including buffaloes, antelope, leopards and hyenas, drink from mineral rich pools of water in the caves, use the walls as salt licks and take advantage of the elephant mining. Ivory poaching during the 1980s and 1990s greatly reduced the Mount Elgon elephant numbers from about 1,200 to around 100.

Answer: Macaw

The clay banks of the River Amazon at Manú National Park, Peru are visited by hundreds of macaws each day, who come to eat clay. Tests have shown that the clay removes plant-based toxins.

Many other animals also eat clay for the same apparent reason. Other research however points to the macaw's clay being a source of sodium in a low-sodium region.

Clay, such as kaolinite, has long been used as a detoxifying substance in traditional medicine.

Answer: Bear

According to legend, the root's use as a topical anaesthetic and antibacterial was discovered by observing bears digging up osha roots (Ligusticum porteri), chewing them and rubbing the paste on their fur. Also known as bear root and bear medicine, its popularity with humans has made it endangered in the wild.

Answer: Maned wolf

Looking like a red fox on stilts, South America's largest canid is omnivorous with up to half of its diet made up of the tomato-like lobeira fruit (or wolf apple), according to some reports. It is susceptible to infection by the giant kidney worm (Dioctophyme renale) and captive animals only survived infection once researchers at Brasília zoo started feeding them lobeira fruit.

Humans can be infected by this worm, typically by eating undercooked freshwater fish carrying the parasite. Surgical removal has been used as a remedy for humans. People do eat lobeira fruit in jams and preserves but not as a worm treatment.

Answer: Chimpanzee

At least thirty-four species of plant have been used by great apes for worming. They all have suitably rough leaves with hook-like microstructures. Chimpanzees have been observed carefully folding the leaves before swallowing them whole. The leaves pass through undigested and mechanically scour out the worms.

Other animals use the same technique; for example, Canadian snow geese before their migration flights and Alaskan bears before hibernation.

Answer: Hedgehog

Warm-blooded animals typically develop a pathogen-killing fever when an infection takes hold. Some animals, particularly cold-blooded ones, may also use the sun to help raise their body temperature and achieve the same effect. Ultra-violet light from the sun is also effective in killing bacteria and viruses.

So if you find a hedgehog sun-bathing, it is probably ill. Being nocturnal, it is normally active at night and sleeping out of sight and in the shade during the day.

Answer: Bohemian waxwing

These birds can eat hundreds of berries each day and need to as, although high in sugar, the fruits are low in nutrients. Their large liver metabolises the alcohol from fermenting berries quite efficiently but the birds can still overdo it, sometimes fatally.

The alcohol is drunk for its calories rather than its inebriating effects, although some animals will use alcohol for stress relief.

Answer: Montane vole

With the snow melt, young sprouts of salt grass (Distichlis stricta) emerge. These contain a chemical (6-methoxybenzoxazolinone) which triggers the reproductive season in montane voles. When salt grass flowers just before dying off, it produces two phenolic acids which bring the breeding season to a close. This allows the montane vole to tie the breeding season to the availability of food.

The muriqui or woolly spider monkey of Brazil is another animal where food plays a strong role. At the optimal time for pregnancy, a breeding muriqui will seek out the pacara earpod tree (Enterolobium contortisiliquum) for its fruit, which contains a steroid used in making progesterone, a hormone with an important role in pregnancy.