Monkey Butt(er)

11 years ago



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12 Responses:

  1. Don Hopkins says:
    11 years ago at 12:21 pm

    How did he know that would work??!
    • jwz says:
      11 years ago at 12:24 pm

      SCIENCE!
      • Don Hopkins says:
        11 years ago at 1:13 pm

        They need a warning sign at the zoo:

        請不要在猴子折騰花生，或者飼養員將有舔他的屁股。

        Please do not toss peanuts at monkey, or else zookeeper will have to lick his butt.
        • Joe says:
          11 years ago at 8:58 pm

          I'm sure that totally wouldn't have the opposite effect.

          Thinking I might have to find a female Chinese gastroenterologist...
    • Nick Lamb says:
      11 years ago at 2:27 pm

      They didn't know, they just suspected. The second link says it's known that adult monkeys do this to their young. Without any obvious reason not to try it, that seems like enough reason to give it a go.
  2. Rick O says:
    11 years ago at 5:52 pm

    The second article mentions it: it's common for mothers of a number of species to do this to their newborns to teach them how to defecate. My wife has hand-reared a number of exotic animals, and she's had to do this same trick -- though she just rubs gently with a damp, warm washcloth -- to several newborns. In effect, you're just telling the newborn "it's this muscle right here that you need to use to get that bad full feeling to go away".
    • jwz says:
      11 years ago at 6:18 pm

      In other words: many animals cannot in fact find their ass with both hands.
    • skreidle says:
      11 years ago at 8:04 pm

      That applies to domestic mammals as well -- kittens and puppies, at least -- which I understand to be an ancestral safety net. If the young can solo-crap willy-nilly, they'll leave far too much scent around, increasing the chance that the den will be discovered and everyone eaten. However, if the only way they can Go is via stimulation from mom, who ingests the offal, there's no excess scent left behind.

      Sensibly nasty, if you ask me.
      • Elusis says:
        11 years ago at 10:52 am

        When you have a litter of orphaned kittens who have a tendency to direct their nursing instinct at whatever is within reach, you then get the comically nasty result of one kitten regularly pooing on another's head. (Not that I have seen this first-hand; I have a kitten-pusher, er, friend who does rescue all the time and likes to amuse with tales of Nature Gone Awry. Apparently a recent litter had two silver-white boys who wound up needing frequent baths because of this very thing.)

        (And no, she has never licked their butts. Warm washcloth all the way.)
    • NotTheBuddha says:
      11 years ago at 12:15 am

      I understand that's been a human nanny's trick as well.

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