Not a scientific observation, but the zoo I used to work at often planted medicinal plants in primate enclosures because they use them. I think this has been common in zoos for a long while.
Goats know. Sheep know. Equines know. If I make sure the farm animals have access to different flora around the pastures they won’t get ill. It’s nice following the animals around and finding out what they eat, and other ways they use plants. The more time I spend with animals the more I think it’s us humans being the dumb ones.
On that note, watching what great apes do in their natural habitat might teach us a few things about plants.
In the case of wild primates I would believe they know as we would use the word. For Goats, Sheep, Or Equines, I have to imagine its closer to how we get cravings for foods sometimes, because we have some sort of nutrient deficiency that food would correct.
That would lead into philosophical discussions as to what knowledge means. I do see that we have the tendency of assuming others have less agency or are less aware of their actions than us. We do that as individuals and as a species, so I tend to be careful. I also wish I had useful food cravings, mine don’t tend to be too healthy.
Humans don’t intrinsically know what to eat to for nutrient deficiencies, that’s a learned behavior based on finding out what the symptoms of a given deficiency are, and learning which foods have the necessary nutrients.
The difference might be in primates in captivity learning from humans using tools around them all day every day. Primate see primate do trial and error.
One seen doing it spontaneously in nature might be more significant.
The difference might be in primates in captivity learning from humans using tools around them all day every day. Primate see primate do trial and error.
I don’t get it. I highly doubt zookeepers tend to pick medicinal plants from the habitats in lieu of popping a painkiller. Otherwise how would using a shovel teach a monkey to use plants to treat a scratch for example?
I don’t mean it that literally. I mean just observing swaths of people putting straws into drinks, putting ointments on scrapes, etc might make them extrapolate and try similar actions using what’s available to them.
It’s not much of a reach for a primate seeing a human manipulate and dig with a shovel, and use that as inspiration to manipulate a bamboo shoot to scratch their own back.
We homosapiens spent 180,000 ish years wandering around in the dirt like idiots before it occurred to some of us that we could grow food in one place, thus beginning the path to civilization. Even we need examples to extrapolate from.
