Amazing stuff!
"All animals, regardless of habitat, must heed the call of nature. But where do wild critters go when they need to go?
Some terrestrial animals do their business in communal latrines—more rugged versions of a public bathroom. These sites can serve as communication hubs among and between species and often play an important role in shaping local ecosystems. Raccoon latrines, for example, may create an “ecology of fear” that scares off other species at risk of dying from roundworm parasites in racoon poop.
Scientists know comparatively little, meanwhile, about the habits of animals that dwell in forest canopies. Learning more would involve scaling large trees, which presents a number of dangers for researchers. ...
set up a camera trap at one latrine... the camera captured visits from an astonishing 17 mammal species , including porcupines, coatis, and several monkeys. ..."
From the abstract:
"We report the discovery of arboreal multi-species mammal latrines in montane cloud forests of Costa Rica. We surveyed 169 trees from 29 species.
Canopy multi-species latrines were only found in 11 individuals of a single tree species, Ficus tuerckheimii. Camera traps recorded 17 mammal species and a total of 181 visits over 60 days, indicating that some vertebrates frequently visit canopy latrines.
Among the most notable visitors was the two-toed sloth (Choloepus hoffmanni), a species long documented to descend to the ground exclusively to defecate.
Our findings suggest that sloths may also use arboreal latrines, challenging a long-standing assumption in sloth ecology and raising new questions about the drivers of their defecation behavior.
As with terrestrial latrines, canopy latrines may also play a role in interspecific communication, provide spatial cues, and affect nutrient dynamics in forest canopies. All these aspects highlight the potentially important role that Ficus tuerckheimii might have in these interaction points."
Multi-Species Canopy Latrines in Costa Rican Cloud Forests: A Mammal Interactions Hub in a Single Tree Species (open access)
Fig. 1 Canopy latrine in Ficus tuerckheimii. (A) Location of the canopy latrine used for this study, 30 m above ground. The circle indicates the latrine's position at the main branch union. (B) Feces from multiple species at the latrine. ...
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