Everybody like cake. Some like it with simple raw ingredients. Many animals, including some human communities, indulge in geophagy, eating mud or clay as a necessary part of their dietary practice. It may help as a detoxification practice or a nutrition supplement.
Go eat some dirt! It may be good for you! but Don't feed the monkeys!
In the videoclip, the baby macaque is seen on what appears to be a mudlobster excavation mound. It is seen eating a small piece of dried marine clay which it had broken off from the mound. It later jumps up to join its mother on a sea hibiscus branch. The mama macaque had broken off a larger fist-size chunk of dried clay and was busy munching on the mud. The baby can be seen reaching out to mama's hand as if to sneak a pinch from mama's cake. It did this three times missing all three attempts as mama ignored it. Mama then decided to move up further into the sea hibiscus bramble and baby jumped behind it missing a good purchase on a branch ending up upside down for a brief bit before it regained its gymnastic ability scampering behind mama.
Find out more at these links :
and also about our macaques :
and mudlobsters:
and the ubiquitous sea hibiscus
