The researchers also long plagued the question, how can individual viral strains from bats to get to people when their interactions are minimal. As informs ScienceDaily, Florida Atlantic University (FAU), bringing their current studies on diet monkeys explanation.
African monkeys from the genus Cercopithecus is definitely not hesitate to have the opportunity to expand your diet of animal protein. Observers yet demonstrated the consummation of birds and bird eggs from nests, nonpoisonous snakes, lizards and small mammals-rodents. And recently, the primatologist Elizabeth Tapanesová of FAU documented nonrandom eating bats monkeys. "Occasional predatory behavior toward monkey bats we observed both in Gombe National Park in Tanzania, as well as forests Kakamenga in Kenya," says study co-author, Kate Detwilerová. Why is this so important? Finally, he bogged down the last piece of tropical epidemiological puzzle to the right place.
Bats from African forests is in their bodies often carry germs of deadly diseases: Ebola, Marburg virus, henipavirů and many other parasites. People with bats in Tanzania and Kenya come into contact to a minimum, but they are often surrounded by curious monkeys who were at country abundant near human settlements. Paběrkující monkeys from the food point of view do not differentiate between infected and healthy bat, as well as nepohrdnou fruit from the garden and one open bins. And their feces or saliva, and very likely involved in transmitting the deadly virus from deep forests, from bats to humans.
How the server writes FAU.edu, the behavior of monkeys has not been limited to some isolated local population in nature, but persisted in individuals bred in captivity. "From this we can infer that the monkeys recognize some bats as part of their diet," she says Tapanesová. docile primates could handle caught bat teeth and limbs within ten minutes to an hour, so there really occurred, words epidemiologists, the "prolonged contact". "in two other documented cases of forest Kakamenga even monkeys collected and sleeping bats hollow tree, "adds Detwilerová. But why is the occasional meaty fad monkeys of interest to the scientific peaks?
Monkeys, those of Tanzania's Gombe and Kenyan Kakamenga, no longer living in the midst of deep and impenetrable forests. Area of their occurrence has shrunk, changed and as a result of human-induced fragmentation of their territory now they frequently encounter in the vicinity of human settlements. I recorded all cases of eating bats were happening in humans amended or marginal environment. "It may be their response to anthropogenic changes," says Tapanes. People penetrating the territory of the forest is so unconsciously, but significantly and more closely approximate the source of the deadly virus.
Author: Radomír Dohnal
Source: Ekolist.cz
