Most of us will use a tissue to suck our noses when we get all tip up – or at least I go for you do – but what if you live in the remote jumpy mountains of Brazil and do n’t have one to reach ? Well , perhaps you could take a leaf out of the barbate Cebus capucinus ’s book and break up your nosewith a stick . And if you really want , you could imitate them further and then eat your boogers . Delicious .
While observing these monkey in the Serra da Capivara National Park , researchers fromOxford Universitysaw an adult female person , Acácia , do something they ’ve never see before . Slowly but purposefully , she poked a control stick up her nozzle , then pulled it out and lap up it . This olfactory organ - picking behavior is one of the only experience example of a female bearded capuchin using a stick as a tool . Not only this , but she also took another sprig and used it as a tooth pick . Thestudyis published in the journalPrimates .
These canny little monkeys are well make love for using tools , often carry rocks from one location to another so that they can bankrupt nuts and seed open to get at the tasty insides . But the use of stick is , for some unknown reason , sex biased . Even though the primates have been see for the past ten years , the vast bulk of stick tool use has only ever been seen in the male . They practice them for extracting honey , shift lizard from stone fissure and probing holes for worm , all foods that females also eat , so why they do n’t use sticks to get at them like the males remains a bit of a mystery .
In fact , according to the research worker , “ the only prior example of an adult female person using a joint tool was when one capuchin used a stick to poke the somebody she was train . ” But now , nose- and tooth - pick can both be added to that prestigious lean . Why , however , is difficult to understand . The only other well - documented example of a primate picking its nose with a stick is from a male Pan troglodytes in Tanzania with influenza - similar symptom . Although Acácia sneezed and then rubbed her nose with both hands following the nasal spurring , she did n’t otherwise seem ill .
It is therefore more likely that she simply had something stuck up her nose that she could n’t dislodge , the research worker suggest . And the same goes for picking her teeth , though they note that she was very exceptional about what twig she used for them , making sure it was n’t as bendy as the one that she used for her olfactory organ . take in the television below of Acácia in action :
