A research group at the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University has shown that bonobos, primates, reduce their appetite for foods contaminated with feces and soil.
It is believed that animals are equipped with an "adaptation system of disgust" that avoids them by disgust in order to protect themselves from the threat of parasites and pathogens.For example, for humans, body fluids such as blood, saliva, and manure are factors that cause disgust.By avoiding these factors as well as disgust, it is said that pathogens and the like are prevented from invading the body as a result.
Bonobos, like chimpanzees, are the closest primates to humans.In this study, in order to examine whether bonobos have an "adaptive system of disgust", we prepared foods with different stain conditions and conducted a series of experiments.
As a result, bonobos actively ate clean foods, while leaving no touch on fecal or soil-stained foods.Moreover, he did not even pretend to take the stinking food.
More interestingly, it was also found that bonobo infants and babies tend to eat dirty food without prior attention.This is similar to the behavior of a human child inadvertently trying to eat dirty food, which causes bonobos to become ill in early childhood and develop their immune system during critical periods of growth. It is said that it suggests the possibility of making it.
The study also found that bonobos rarely have "novelty phobia" that avoids unfamiliar foods like humans.These results show that bonobos determine their eating behavior according to their disgust in the same way as humans, and provide important insights for exploring the origin of human disgust.
Paper information:[Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B] Feeding decisions under contamination risk in bonobos
