This tree is the number one choice for forest mammals going number two
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(See our AI policy here .) When a human has a sudden need to go number two, they might seek out a bathroom. When mammals in the forests of Costa Rica need to poop, they find a strangler fig. A survey of 169 trees found 11 that doubled as elevated toilets; all were figs.
Cameras caught 17 different species using one of these treetop potties. Many mammals choose a favorite place to poo, says Mike Cove. He did not take part in the new research, but he does study mammals at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.
There’ve been lots of reports of multiple tropical species sharing a pooping spot, Cove says. But all those toilets, also called latrines, were on the ground. Jeremy Quirós-Navarro found his first treetop toilet by accident. At the time of this doo-doo discovery, he had been documenting plant life in the cloud forest of Costa Rica.
These are forests that have a constant cover of mist and clouds. Quirós-Navarro works at the University of Connecticut, in Storrs, where he studies plant identification. In a tree, right where a bunch of large branches came together, Quirós-Navarro found a pile of poo.
As he kept climbing, he found more poop piles. “But only in a specific [type of] tree,” he says. The lucky tree was a strangler fig (Ficus tuerckheimii).
This plant is very important in tropical ecosystems. It provides plenty of food. It also has lots of holes that animals can use for shelter.
Its wide, spreading branches along the forest ceiling also create walkways for many animals. All these things make the strangler fig a hub for cloud forest mammals. That, in turn, makes this tree what scientists call a keystone species.
Serving as a public restroom might be yet one more role that strangler figs play in forests. Researchers shared their new findings March 16 in Ecology and Evolution. Quirós-Navarro may have found the first fig tree toilet by accident.
But after running into three more, “we started thinking that this is a pattern,” he recalls. So his team decided to look for more treetop latrines. They checked 29 different species — in all, 169 trees.
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