Nature’s Apothecary: Monarchs, Milkweed, and the Art of Self-Medication with Dr. Jaap de Roode

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Today's episode is all about royalty. No, not those odd primates shuffling around palaces in crowns and robes, but the monarchs of the butterfly world.

We're joined by Dr. Jaap de Roode, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Biology at Emory University, who's one of the world's experts in insect self-medication.

Yup, you heard that right.

You might have caught one of our episodes (42, 60) with Mike Huffman, who discovered chimpanzees self-medicating in Tanzania to ward off parasites.  Well, if you thought that was amazing (it is!), wait'll you hear Jaap talk about monarch butterflies! 

After sharing his background in parasitology and population ecology, Jaap describes his work on medicative behaviors in monarch butterflies. From there, we go on to a whole bunch of other topics, like:

• how parasites affect monarch health, especially during their migrations
• the incredible diversity of animal medicative behaviors
• The role of citizen science in monarch conservation
• The importance of science communication in raising awareness

We also talk about Jaap's forthcoming book, Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes and Other Animals Heal Themselves, due out from Princeton University Press on March 4, 2025.

When we recorded the interview in spring 2023, Jaap was actually in Japan visiting Mike Huffman to talk about this book, so Mike joined us for the interview. 

For anyone whose interested, I noticed that Jaap started a podcast of his own out of Emory University called Virulent Vortex. Check that out if you're interested in "infectious diseases across scales from molecules and pathogens to populations and pandemics, and everything in between" (from their website).

As always, I thoroughly enjoyed having this conversation, and learned a lot from Jaap about butterflies and beyond.

Disclaimer: The PrimateCast in no way, shape or form supports self-medicating with cigarette butts like those inventive urban birds in Mexico!

The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.

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