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Animals Are the Original Wellness Influencers
Long before TikTok and probiotics, animals were teaching each other tips on feeling better, from swallowing leaves to get rid of parasites to using icebergs for exfoliation.
And many insects invest in community and intergenerational health, practicing what some researchers call “social medication.” For instance, parasite-infected monarch butterfly moms lay their eggs on more medicinally powerful milkweed species, so their offspring won’t have to suffer like they do. Ocean water is thick with viruses and bacteria, and whales must “shed continuously to maintain healthy skin” and get rid of barnacles, says marine ecologist Olaf Meynecke. In Australia and elsewhere, groups of humpbacks drop down to sandy areas of the seabed and roll, sending “sand and skin flying around everywhere,” says Meynecke, who was the first to film them performing this behavior.
Or read this on Wired
