Insect Repellent​—For Monkeys!

THE tropical forests of Venezuela are home to a highly intelligent primate, the wedge-capped capuchin monkey. When the rainy season descends on the monkey’s jungle home, something else descends with it​—clouds of merciless mosquitoes. Besides being a nuisance, these invading insects are dangerous. They often carry the eggs of the parasitic botfly, which can result in debilitating, festering cysts when they are deposited beneath the monkey’s skin.

Apparently to protect themselves from the onslaught, capuchins cover their bodies with a potent natural repellent​—the secretion of a certain type of jungle millipede. These millipedes secrete two compounds that are effective against insects. In fact, their secretion is even stronger than man-made repellents used by the military!

Hence, during the rainy season, the wedge-capped capuchin pokes around in tree bark or on termite mounds looking for the four-inch- [10 cm]long millipedes. When it finds one, it rubs the millipede all over itself​—from head to foot. The “secretion is so avidly sought by the monkeys that up to four of them will share a single millipede,” says the Journal of Chemical Ecology. Even the usual pecking order, evident at feeding time and on other occasions, is set aside when a millipede massage begins.

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Millipede secretion

[Credit Line]

Thomas Eisner/Cornell University

[Picture Credit Line on page 15]

Dr. Zoltan Takacs