A SPECIES of African monkey has added charcoal to its diet, apparently to help it overcome the chemical defences of the plants it eats. The monkeys can now tolerate a wider range of plants and, as a result, their population has soared.
Scientists working on the east African island of Zanzibar observed that in one part of the island, red colobus monkeys (
Struhsaker says that the monkeys get the charcoal from burned tree and palm stumps in fields, out of abandoned kilns, and even steal it from villagers' hearths. His observations, published in the current issue of the
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