Chimps dining on disease-ridden bat poo could be the catalyst for the next pandemic, experts fear.
Chimpanzees living in a protected Ugandan forest have turned to eating guano due to over-farming wiping out the animal’s natural food source – raffia palm.
A new study published in the journal Communications Biology, revealed that chimps living in the Budongo Forest Reserve in Uganda regularly eat bat guano.
The study observed that from 2017 to 2019, the forest’s apes ate bat droppings at least 92 times on 71 different days, reports MailOnline, in the first documentation of chimps eating bat poo in the wild.
Scientists also saw black and white colobus monkeys and red duiker antelopes ate and licked guano as well – and the discovery has shocked, repulsed and concerned the team of experts.
Talking to Science, Tony Goldberg, a veterinary epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin—Madison and lead researcher said: “Aside from the ick factor, we all had the exact same thought.
