VIDEO: chimpanzee Ton Food & # 039; Supplements & # 039;

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Chimpanzees eat clay "as a mineral supplement"

July 29, 2015 Last updated at 09:26 BST

A study shows that chimpanzees in Uganda eat clay to increase their intake of minerals.

Writing in the journal PLoS One , an international research team has identified animals eat clay and loam water, often with leaves as sponges.

This behavior is shown in the images above, the increase after 2005, along with the animals began less raffia palm trees that have become rare because they were used to eat from local producers snuff.

"Rafia is an essential source of sodium, but to our surprise, the sodium content in tone is very low, so it does not seem the main reason for the new bulimic tone," said Vernon Reynolds, professor emeritus at the University of Oxford and first author the study.

"Instead, we believe that low concentrations of minerals in their normal diet of fruit and leaves suggests that the tone is usually consumed as a mineral supplement."

Eat call the Earth, the scientists "geophagia" is a habit in chimpanzees and other animals known.

Another community of animals elsewhere in Uganda has shown that self-medication with a particular combination of soil and leaves with anti-malarial properties.

Videos courtesy of Brittany Fallon of the University of St Andrews

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