Gibraltar’s monkeys eat mud to fix upset stomachs caused by junk food

While humans settle their digestive unrest by popping pills and gulping down laxatives, do you know how animals deal with an upset stomach? Interestingly, in the wild every animal has a different way to get rid of their digestive issues, but Gibraltar’s monkeys have literally changed the game! Yes, this may sound hilarious but Gibraltar’s monkeys have actually started eating mud to settle their digestive woes. Read on to know more…

Are monkeys turning smarter
Much like humans animals too understand and adapt, and similar thing has grabbed the attention of experts and scientists alike; when the monkey troops living on the Rocks of Gibraltar have learned to eat soil and mud in what scientists believe is an effort to settle their stomachs after all the junk food they receive and sometimes steal from crowds of tourists.

Researchers found that they intentionally started eating mud, and this is known as geophagy. The experts also observed groups of Barbary macaques in the territory. This thing was common among monkeys that had the most contact with tourists ate the most soil, and this consumption peaked in the holiday season as per the observation.

Bizarre, but true
About 230 macaques live on Gibraltar in eight distinct groups, and while local authorities provide them with daily helpings of fruit, vegetables and seeds, tourists routinely feed them snacks ranging from bags of chips and chocolate bars to M&M’s and ice-creams. While, the observations don’t prove why the monkeys eat soil, but scientists suspect it has a protective effect on the digestive system. The only macaques on the rock that were not seen eating soil belonged to a group that is isolated from visitors and tourists.

As per Dr Sylvain Lemoine, a primate behavioral ecologist at the University of Cambridge, said that the monkeys may be eating the soil to rebalance their gut microbiomes, the populations of microbes that live in the digestive tract, which become disturbed by the fatty, salty and sugary snacks the monkeys binge on.
“We think that eating this junk food disrupts the composition of the microbiome and we know that bacteria and minerals in soil can help recompose the microbiome and alleviate the negative effects." He further added that "we think there’s a protective effect of the soil and this is why they may be feeding on mud and soli.”