Monkeys in Gibraltar eat soil to heal from junk food binges: Study
A study has found that Barbary macaques in Gibraltar consume soil to recover from unhealthy diets caused by junk food offered by tourists. The research highlights that this behavior, known as geophagy, is a form of self-medication to alleviate stomach issues from their altered diet. The study indicates that this soil consumption is particularly prevalent during the summer months when tourist activity peaks.
- ▪Barbary macaques in Gibraltar eat soil to recover from junk food binges.
- ▪The study reported geophagy among these monkeys for the first time, linking it to their consumption of human food.
- ▪The behavior was not observed in a group of monkeys without tourist contact, suggesting a strong association with human food.
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| Original publisher | Straits Times — World |
| Canonical URL | https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/monkeys-in-gibraltar-eat-soil-to-heal-from-junk-food-binges-study |
| Publication time | Fri, 22 May 2026 16:35:00 +0800 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-22T08:42:01.154Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-22T08:42:01.154Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | 2vvK_rKm7-SU · 2 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Monkeys in Gibraltar eat soil to heal from junk food binges: StudySign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inboxA young Barbary macaque in Gibraltar on May 6.PHOTO: AFPPublished May 22, 2026, 04:35 PMUpdated May 22, 2026, 04:35 PMGibraltar - A colony of macaques that gorge on snacks offered by tourists in the British territory of Gibraltar swallow soil to recover from their junk food binges, a study has found.Believed to originate from North Africa, the roughly 230 primates are the main attraction in the British exclave of 30,000 people that borders southern Spain, according to the Gibraltar Ornithological and Natural History Society.“We are here for the monkeys, to take a look at them, because it’s the only place in Europe where the monkeys are,” Danish visitor Elish, 29, told…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Straits Times — World.