We may wrinkle our noses at the thought of eating at a public toilet. But in the forests of Brazil, tapir toilets are important buffet centers for various animals, new research has found.
The lowland tapir (Tapirus terrestris), about the size of a large pig, eats a diverse variety of fruits, seeds, plants, and leaves. Previous research has shown that this diet can help forests regenerate—when tapirs poop, they deposit many of the seeds they’ve consumed, intact and ready to grow.
But lowland tapirs don’t poop randomly. Instead, several individuals defecate regularly in shared toilet spaces called “communal latrines”. Such communal tapir latrines in Carlos Botelho State Park, a protected area in São Paulo state, Brazil, caught the attention of Laís Lautenschlager, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Miami, U.S., and lead author of the study.
“Besides multiple tapirs using it for their defecation purposes, what if other vertebrate species are benefitting from latrines?” Lautenschlager told Mongabay.
To find out, Lautenschlager and her colleagues installed automatic camera traps around 27 tapir latrines. These cameras recorded activity around the latrines from December 2021 to June 2022.
When the researchers checked the footage, they were in for a pleasant surprise: 18 different species of animals had come to the latrines looking for food. Five species were regulars.
One of the most active visitors was the Brazilian squirrel (Guerlinguetus brasiliensis). Researchers observed the mammals visiting the latrines in the mornings to pick out seeds to eat. The squirrels also sometimes removed seeds, cleaned them up, and buried them somewhere nearby.
“Once they ‘forget’ the exact location where they buried hundreds of seeds daily, some of them can germinate and grow into a new plant eventually,” Lautenschlager said.
By consuming seeds and then hoarding and “forgetting” where they buried seeds, the squirrels help control plant populations and the diversity of tropical forests, the study notes.
The camera traps also recorded four species of rainforest birds regularly foraging from the tapir latrines: the rare and near-threatened solitary tinamou (Tinamus solitarius), the short-tailed antthrush (Chamaeza campanisona), the spot-winged wood quail (Odontophorus capueira), and the white-necked thrush (Turdus albicollis).
In fact, the researchers noticed something odd about the white-necked thrushes. These birds preferred to visit latrines a few days after the tapirs had pooped. This observation, Lautenschlager said, suggests that these birds don’t necessarily need fresh dung piles to feed from. “Thus, for some species, tapir latrines are considered a long-lasting resource site,” she added.
The lowland tapir is today threatened by deforestation, hunting, and vehicle collisions. Its population is declining in many parts of the Atlantic Forest, of which Carlos Botelho State Park is a part.
But as the new study suggests, tapirs and their toilets are critical for the landscapes they live in. They don’t just help forests regenerate; they also help feed other animals.
Banner image by Allan Hopkins via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Credits
