In the very early days of COVID-19, millions who'd rarely thought twice about germ avoidance became germophobes. Some folks wiped down groceries before stuffing them into the refrigerator. Others let mail quarantine outside for days lest it harbor stray viruses.
With the hindsight that SARS-CoV-2 spread primarily through the air, these sorts of precautions seem extreme. But in the moment, they were perhaps reasonable ways of avoiding an unknown pathogen. Around this same time, a different virus hit a macaque sanctuary in Texas.
New research suggests the monkeys responded in similar ways as humans did to COVID-19 — by being extra germophobic. Humans are far from the only animals to avoid possible sources of disease. Scientists have found that critters as diverse as monkeys and nematodes (aka roundworms) can sense and steer clear of feces, for instance, which can harbor harmful bacteria.
"Something that has been less studied is the question of how flexible this avoidance is," says Stephan Kaufhold, a cognitive scientist at UC San Diego. He wanted to see if experiencing an outbreak could make individual monkeys even more wary of picking up pathogens. The outbreak in the Texas sanctuary, home to over 100 macaques, offered Kaufhold and his colleagues an opportunity to put that question to the test.
In 2020, macaques in an enclosure at the sanctuary started getting sick with an HIV-like virus called SRV. Once a monkey gets infected through bodily fluids, the disease "can take a rapid progression, where about three to four weeks after you initially get infected, you might die," says Kaufhold. Many monkeys died, while others developed chronic immunodeficiency.
Sanctuary staff quickly started separating monkeys quickly, ultimately creating two groups — those who'd experienced the virus, either by getting sick themselves or witnessing others get sick, and those who hadn't experienced the outbreak. To see if those different histories made the monkeys more germophobic, the researchers presented individuals with two tasty treats — grapes. "They get a fantastic diet at the sanctuary, but not grapes every day, so grapes were definitely a treat," says Kaufhold.
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