Female macaque at Italian sanctuary ate her mummified dead baby

(Phys.org)—A trio of researchers working at Italy’s Parco Abatino animal sanctuary report witnessing an adult female Tonkean macaque eat the mummified remains of her dead infant. In their paper published in the journal Primates describing the incident, Arianna De Marco, Roberto Cozzolino and Bernard Thierry also outline the events leading up to the odd behavior and offer possible reasons for it.