WELLNESS GONE WILD

LEAF SWALLOWING, ICEBERG EXFOLIATION, AND OTHER TECHNIQUES FROM EARTH'S ORIGINAL TREND-SPREADING INFLUENCERS.

- BY Cara Giaimo ILLUSTRATIONS BY Haeryung Choi

IN THE EARLY 2010s, researchers in Mexico City noticed that sparrows and finches at the national university were lacing their nests with cigarette butts. The birds would collect the butts—mostly smoked—carefully remove the outer paper layer, and weave fibers from the filters into their homes, among the twigs and grass.

This sort of dubious yet intriguing lifestyle choice will be familiar to anyone who follows health trends. It seems weird—but does it make some kind of backward sense? In this case, the birds were vindicated: The more cigarette filter fibers the nests had, the fewer parasites they harbored, probably because nicotine repels bugs. There are drawbacks, though: Chicks raised in butt nests are more likely to develop blood cell abnormalities. Again, familiar.

While we may not want to follow this particular lead, animals are the original wellness influencers. “Healers and shamans have looked at animals for thousands of years,” says biologist Jaap de Roode, author of the recent book Doctors by Nature. Some of these discoveries have trickled up: Oshá root—which, as indigenous Americans have long observed, bears like to chew up and rub on their fur—is available in many natural medicine stores for various uses, including pain relief. Other animal wellness trends might not be quite as imitable, sadly, for our species.

Insect Herbalism

Parasites are a top concern for animals and have inspired waves of evolutionary creativity. Some parasite-infected sea slugs shed their entire bodies, then regenerate from the head. But more common is what de Roode calls “animal medication.” Animals are considered to medicate when they eat or apply an external substance that they normally wouldn’t and it helps them “by preventing or clearing infection or reducing disease symptoms,” he says.