Allo‐ and autocoprophagy events in wild western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla)
Mouele AM, Brogan S, Stephan C (2022)
Publication Type: Journal article
Publication year: 2022
Journal
Book Volume: 60
Pages Range: 1329-1333
Issue: 4
DOI: 10.1111/aje.13003
Abstract
A poorly understood behavioural trait amongst mammals is coprophagy, the deliberate ingestion of faeces, either their own (autocoprophagy) or of others (allocoprophagy; Hirakawa, 2001). Especially for great apes, this behaviour is discussed controversially because it occurs more frequently in captivity, suggesting that impoverished living conditions associated with stress or boredom lead to coprophagy, similarly as they lead to other abnormal, stereotypical behaviours (e.g. chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes: Fritz et al., 1992; gorillas, Gorilla spp.: Akers & Schildkraut, 1985; Faraldo & Taylor, 2003; orangutans, Pongo pygmaeus: Gilloux et al., 1992). However, recent findings in captive chimpanzees have shown that coprophagy is more strongly correlated with normal social behaviour than with abnormal behavioural traits (Hopper et al., 2016) and others suggested that coprophagy might be subject to social learning (Freeman & Ross, 2014; Hook et al., 2002; van Leeuwen et al., 2014; Nash et al., 1999). This renders it unlikely that this behaviour is purely stereotypic in nature. Furthermore, coprophagy has also been observed in wild Pan spp. and gorilla populations (chimpanzees: Bertolani & Pruetz, 2011; bonobos: Sakamaki, 2010; mountain gorillas: Harcourt & Stewart, 1978), which further challenges the notion that coprophagy is exclusively linked to unnatural living conditions. Great apes in the wild have so far only been observed to perform autocoprophagy with some rare exceptions in chimpanzees, who occasionally ingested elephant dung (Krief et al., 2005), and notion of suggested gorilla allocoprophagy, although it is not fully clear whether faeces were ingested (Masi & Breuer, 2018). In the wild, coprophagy occurs very infrequently and inter-individual variability is surprisingly high (Bertolani & Pruetz, 2011; Masi & Breuer, 2018; Sakamaki, 2010).
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APA:
Mouele, A.M., Brogan, S., & Stephan, C. (2022). Allo‐ and autocoprophagy events in wild western lowland gorillas (<i>Gorilla gorilla gorilla</i>). African Journal of Ecology, 60, 1329-1333. https://doi.org/10.1111/aje.13003
MLA:
Mouele, Aristide M., Sean Brogan, and Claudia Stephan. "Allo‐ and autocoprophagy events in wild western lowland gorillas (<i>Gorilla gorilla gorilla</i>)." African Journal of Ecology 60 (2022): 1329-1333.
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