Lessons from my extraordinary experience of acquiring followers

A few years ago, a group of researchers stumbled upon a female lemur engaging in a bizarre ritual. In her left hand was a millipede, freshly plucked from the forest floor. As the scientists watched, the lemur munched briefly on the millipede’s body, gnawing greedily until it oozed orange — and proceeded to rub the saliva-slicked drippings vigorously over her genitals, anus, and tail. After a well-earned break, she concluded the ordeal by gulping down the millipede’s spent body — but this encore act seemed to play second fiddle to her slathering shenanigans.

To better understand this behavior, that same team, led by Louise Peckre, a behavioral ecologist at the German Primate Center at the Leibniz Institute for Primate Research in Germany, monitored two groups of red-fronted lemurs in the Kirindy Forest of Madagascar. In a study published this week in the journal Primates, the researchers found that lemurs in this locale munch on millipedes — but not for snacking purposes, or even grisly necrophilia. Instead, they believe these primates scrub themselves with the masticated carcasses to treat or prevent the spread of gastrointestinal disease — in essence, a form of self-medication.

“It’s not something that has been observed much in lemurs before, but it’s a group [in which] I’d expect to see it happening — they’re very curious and very smart,” says Ian Tattersall, an anthropologist and lemur expert at the American Museum of Natural History who was not involved in the new study.