#409 - Animals as Doctors of Nature: A Dialogue with Jaap de Roode

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Jaap de Roode about how animals heal themselves. They discuss whether animals intentionally or unintentionally seek out medicinal plants, four ways animals fight infection, Monarch butterflies and treating against parasites, chimps and their gut health. They also talk about birds using cigarettes in their nests, ants and rezin, goats and sheep having preferences, cats and dogs eating grass, and many other topics.

Jaap de Roode is a biologist and professor of biology at Emory University. He has a MSc in Population Biology from Wageningen University in the Netherlands and PhD in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He is interested in the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases, and currently studies infectious diseases of monarch butterflies, honey bees and humans. He is the author of the book, Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes, and Other animals Heal Themselves.

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