Several animals adapt a variety of strategies for skin health and to deal with skin-borne parasites. Many mammals topically apply leaves, arthropods or other aromatic materials to their skin. Capuchin monkeys (Cebus capucinus) are known to rub their fur with several species of citrus fruits, leaves and stems of Piper marginatum and Clemetis dioica (Ranunculaceae). Such “fur rubbing” is…
About 50 species of birds are known to include fresh plant material inside their nests and roosting environment. Increasing evidence indicates that heavy infestation of nests by ectoparasites affects survivor ship and fecundity of breeding adult birds. When ectoparasite build up is high, sea birds and swallows abandon breeding colonies. Certain birds characteristically place green plant…
In 1987, in the beginning of rainy season, Hufmann and Mohamedi Seifu Kalunde—game officer, Mahale Mountain National Park observed a sick non-feeding female chimpanzee self-medicating. It selected a small shrub— Vernonia amygdalina(called goat killer for its extremely poisonous bitter leaf) bent down several shoots, carefully stripped off the outer layers and began sucking and chewing on…
At Gombe National Park and Mahale Mountains National Park in Western Tanzania, Chimpanzees were observed to follow a seemingly puzzling feeding behavior. Within an hour of leaving their sleeping nests, before their first big meal, these animals carefully and slowly selected leaves of specific plants such as Aspilia rudis, A. pluriseta or A. mossambicensis before swallowing them. What was puzzling…
The first modern observation of self-medication in non-human vertebrates was put forth by Daniel H Janzen, an ecologist at the University of Pennsylvania. Jane Goodall—a British Primatologist, Ethologist and Anthropologist, Eloy Rodriguez—a biochemist and Professor at Cornell University, Richard Wrangham, a Harvard University Primatologist, World Wildlife Fund Scientist Holly Dublin, Michael Huffmann and Toshisada Nishida—Primatologists of…
A domestic animal has been artificially selected by humans for certain characteristics such as temperament or appearance. Since they have been bred for characteristics attractive or useful to humans, they are very different from wild animals. Our extensive experience with domestication of animals is bringing up many aspects which seem to better our understanding of…
Wild Animals A wild animal is a product of natural selection, in which those that have best adapted to their environment have survived to breed. They demonstrate successful strategies for survival that have been honed by natural selection. It is a general observation that wild animals free in their undisturbed habitat not exposed to extremes…
The term “zoopharmacognosy” was proposed by Eloy Rodriguez and Richard Wrangam in 1987, to describe the process by which wild animals select and use specific plants with medicinal properties for the treatment and prevention of disease. This was following several anecdotal evidences from many naturalists’ observation that animals in the wild resort to plant self-medication…
In recent times, IP rights have been the single important determinant of the changed trend in global trade relationships between nations. With globalization of culture, trade and communication, the patent system associated with a wealth of technological information has become an important resource for technological development, an aid in technology transfer and, thus, a significant…
Biopiracy of Indian TK was possible because the information regarding the prior existing knowledge of the products was not available to patent examiners. Though large part of our traditional medical knowledge has been meticulously documented in several Indian languages, these are not accessible to patent offices. Also, TK available orally as folk knowledge is not…