FEMALE sifaka eat plants rich in poisonous tannins in the weeks before giving birth. This makes them the first animal known to self-medicate when pregnant.
It's unclear why the sifaka, a type of lemur, does this. In other mammals, small doses of tannins kill parasites and stimulate milk production. And vets often use tannins to prevent miscarriage, raising the intriguing possibility that by eating the plants the sifaka is protecting its developing baby.
At first sight, a taste for tannins might seem odd whether you are pregnant or not. Plants use them as defensive chemicals to deter herbivores from munching their leaves, as the toxic tannins bind to proteins in the animals' guts. "The sifakas are doing something that goes against the grain," says Michael Huffman, an expert in primate self-medication at Kyoto University in Japan and a member of the team. "But this probably means they have a good ...
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