“Finish your yogurt, sweetheart, it’s good for your bones. And take a few almonds, so you’ll stay healthy.” You may have heard this before, and rightly so. Minerals, such as calcium and magnesium, are vital to our functioning as they ensure that our bones, muscles, heart and brain work properly. And the same holds for wildlife. In the Budongo Forest in western Uganda, wild animals are very fond of eating the pith of decaying Raphia farinifera palm trees, which contain minerals critical to their health. But when local farmers uprooted the trees to make strings for drying tobacco leaves, some animals made changes to their diet. Perilous changes, according to a study released in Communications Biology earlier this year. In a possible response to the mineral scarcity, chimpanzees, monkeys and antelopes turned to an alternative source of dietary minerals: bat droppings, also known as guano, which hold high concentrations of the minerals that wildlife needs. But the bat guano also contains plenty of infectious viruses, including one that is a relative of the famous SARS coronaviruses, which kicked off the COVID-19 pandemic. “Human-induced activities are often the primary drivers of virus emergence among wildlife and humans,” conservation ecologist Arend de Haas, who co-founded the African Conservation Foundation, wrote in an email to Mongabay. “They create opportunities for viruses to jump species barriers by increasing contact between humans, domestic animals, and wildlife.” Old World Roundleaf bat. Guano collected from the species tested positive for 27 infectious viruses. Image by Yuzefovich Alexander…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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