Geophagy of Macaca Thibetana at Mt. Huangshan, China

Geophagy, or soil ingestion, is the deliberate act of eating soil. This behavior is a widespread practice in the animal world, particularly among generalist herbivores and primates. Primates consume a wide and complex variety of food items that vary temporally and spatially. Mature leaves, flowers, leaf buds, fruits, seeds and invertebrates constitute the bulk of potential food items. The close link between geophagy and primates suggests a need to ingest soil. Various nonexclusive principal functions have been advanced to explain geophagic behaviors, the main ones being: taste enhancement, detoxification of noxious or unpalatable compounds present in plant foods, supplementation of mineral nutrients, alleviation of gastrointestinal upsets such as diarrhea, counteraction of the effects of endoparasites and reduction of excess acidity in the digestive tract. So far no studies on the possible adaptive significance and ecological consequences of geophagy in primates have been published in China. In this paper we