A variety of jungle animals all use one type of tree as a latrine
A northern tamandua – a kind of anteater – using the fig tree latrine Tropical Canopy Ecology Project A host of tree mammal species, including opossums, two-toed sloths and wild cats, have been found sharing a latrine in the forest canopy. Jeremy Quirós-Navarro, an independent ecologist in Costa Rica at the time, first discovered a latrine 30 metres up a strangler fig tree while looking for somewhere flat to place a camera. He saw a natural platform, strewn with different colours and textures of faeces. Later, he noticed more latrines, always on the same species: Ficus tuerckheimii. Quirós-Navarro and his colleagues set video traps at one latrine in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve. Two months later, they were astonished to find 17 different mammal species had used it. “It was crazy,” he says. “It is almost the total number of canopy mammals that you can find in the cloud forest.” There were about three visits a day. Wildcats known as margays sprayed urine there, apparently to mark territory. Porcupines toileted and rubbed branches, leaving scent. …
