A variety of jungle animals all use one type of tree as a latrine
A northern tamandua – a type of anteater – using the fig tree latrine
Tropical Canopy Ecology Project
A multitude of arboreal mammal species, including opossums, two-toed sloths, and wild cats, have been found sharing latrines in the forest canopy.
Jeremy Quirós-Navarro, an independent ecologist in Costa Rica at the time, first discovered latrines 30 meters above a strangler fig tree while looking for a flat spot to place a camera. He saw a natural platform, dotted with different colors and textures of excrement. Later, he noticed other latrines, still of the same type: Ficus turkheimii.
Quirós-Navarro and his colleagues installed video traps in a latrine in the Monteverde Forest Reserve. Two months later, they were amazed to find that 17 different species of mammals had used it.
“It was crazy,” he said. “That’s almost the total number of canopy mammals that can be found in the cloud forest.”
There were about three visits per day. Wild cats, known as margays, sprayed urine there, apparently to mark their territory. The porcupines cleaned and rubbed the branches, leaving a scent. Opossums, white-faced capuchins and coatis have passed through, as have howler monkeys and weasels.
Even two-toed sloths, which were thought to only defecate on the ground, did so there.
The team examined 170 other trees and found more latrines, but only on this species of strangler fig. There are now anecdotal reports that strangler fig trees also supply latrines in Honduras and Borneo, says Quirós-Navarro.
A hairy dwarf porcupine from Mexico
Tropical Canopy Ecology Project
This sharing of toilets is “fascinating and very unusual,” says Neil Jordan of the University of New South Wales, Australia, who was not involved in the study. “It’s very difficult to study animals 30 meters up in the canopy, so it’s not surprising that this hasn’t been discovered before.”
Some ground-dwelling animals, such as rhinos and hyenas, also use communal latrines. Scientists believe these places allow animals to mark territory, exchange information about each other, provide landmarks, and keep their droppings in one place – in part to prevent predators from sniffing them elsewhere.
The strangler fig is a spectacular plant that gradually envelops its host tree, often killing it. Ficus turkheimii has a group of branches at the height of the canopy “like a [upturned] hand,” says Quirós-Navarro, creating a “comfortable and protected well in the middle.”
Its extra-long branches – he estimates 12 meters – provide highways even across rivers, making them potentially out of proportion in the forest.
The trees are popular with climbers, some of whom camp on the latrine platforms. Quirós-Navarro fears that “by simply disrupting a [strangler fig] tree, you can affect all the communication between one forest and the other forest,” with knock-on effects on the ecology.
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