Zoopharmacognosy refers to the process by which non-Human animal

Animal

Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...

s self-medicate

Self-medication

Self-medication is a term used to describe the use of drugs or other self-soothing forms of behavior to treat untreated and often undiagnosed mental distress, stress and anxiety, including mental illnesses and/or psychological trauma...

, by selecting and using plant

Plant

Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

s, soil

Soil

Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...

s, and insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s to treat and prevent disease. Coined by Dr. Eloy Rodriguez

Eloy Rodriguez

Eloy Rodriguez is a Mexican-American biochemist. He is the James Perkins Professor of Environmental Studies at Cornell University. He was born in Edinburg, Texas....

, a biochemist and professor at Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

, the word is derived from roots zoo ("animal"), pharma ("drug"), and gnosy ("knowing").

Observers have noticed that some species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 ingest non-foods, such as toxic

Toxicity

Toxicity is the degree to which a substance can damage a living or non-living organisms. Toxicity can refer to the effect on a whole organism, such as an animal, bacterium, or plant, as well as the effect on a substructure of the organism, such as a cell or an organ , such as the liver...

 plants, clay

Clay

Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...

 or charcoal

Charcoal

Charcoal is the dark grey residue consisting of carbon, and any remaining ash, obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances. Charcoal is usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood or other substances in the absence of oxygen...

, to ward off parasitic infestation or poison

Poison

In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....

ing. Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall

Dame Jane Morris Goodall, DBE , is a British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace. Considered to be the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best known for her 45-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National...

 witnessed chimpanzee

Chimpanzee

Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...

s eating certain bushes to make themselves sick, and substantial evidence indicates that they swallow whole the leaves of certain rough-leaved plants, such as Aneilema aequinoctiale

Aneilema aequinoctiale

Aneilema aequinoctiale is a flowering shrub native to West and East Africa. It is sometimes referred to by its English common name, clinging aneilema, and in Yoruba, a language of West Africa, it may be referred to as ẹfĩajija....

, in order to remove parasitic worms from their intestines. Some Brazilian parrots eat kaolin

Kaolinite

Kaolinite is a clay mineral, part of the group of industrial minerals, with the chemical composition Al2Si2O54. It is a layered silicate mineral, with one tetrahedral sheet linked through oxygen atoms to one octahedral sheet of alumina octahedra...

 (a form of clay).

Illustrating the medicinal knowledge of some species, apes have been observed selecting a particular part of a medicinal plant by taking off leaves, then breaking the stem to suck out the juice. In an interview with Neil Campbell

Neil Campbell (scientist)

Neil A. Campbell was an American scientist known best for his textbook Biology. First published in 1987, the text is currently in its 9th edition and co-authored by Jane Reece...

, Rodriguez describes the importance of biodiversity to medicine:

Some of the compounds we've identified by zoopharmacognosy kill parasitic worms, and some of these chemicals may be useful against tumor

Tumor

A tumor or tumour is commonly used as a synonym for a neoplasm that appears enlarged in size. Tumor is not synonymous with cancer...

s. There is no question that the templates for most drugs are in the natural world.

William Astor has observed self-medicative behavior in captive estrildid finch

Estrildid finch

The estrildid finches are small passerine birds of the Old World tropics and Australasia. They can be classified as the family Estrildidae , or as a sub-group within the family Passeridae, which also includes the true sparrows....

es. The finches, of several different species, were observed to correctly target appropriate antibiotics out of a range made available to them, through which they were able to cure themselves of life threatening diseases (as opposed to relatively minor ailments like indigestion). These finches did not learn this self-medicative behavior from their parents or others in the flock through social learning like apes and chimpanzees are suspected of doing. This ability of estrildid finches seems to be innate.

A female capuchin monkey

Capuchin monkey

The capuchins are New World monkeys of the genus Cebus. The range of capuchin monkeys includes Central America and South America as far south as northern Argentina...

 in captivity was observed using tools covered in a sugar-based syrup to groom her wounds and those of her infant.

Elephants in Africa will self-medicate by chewing on the leaves of a tree from the Boraginaceae

Boraginaceae

Boraginaceae, the Borage or Forget-me-not family, include a variety of shrubs, trees, and herbs, totaling about 2,000 species in 146 genera found worldwide.A number of familiar plants belong to this family....

 family, which induces labor

Childbirth

Childbirth is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the birth of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus...

. Kenyans also use this tree for the same purpose.