When fruit is scarce, these monkeys hunt animals

Conversely, when animals are scarce, wolves will eat lots of blueberries.

https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-wolves-may-be-helping-...

Once a horse gets a taste for baby chicks, it's hard to convince them they aren't omnivorous.

Related somewhat: ground squirrels in Bay Area park started actively started hunting voles.

https://www.ucdavis.edu/climate/news/carnivorous-feeding-squ...

Most Asian primates that I have encountered are omnivores, especially if you include insects and small reptiles/amphibians.

Is that not the case in Central/South America?

> Among primatologists, bearded capuchins are famous for using stone tools to obtain food. They’ve been observed placing palm nuts on a hard surface and smashing them with rocks to reveal the tasty kernels inside. Wild females have also been seen using sticks or blades of grass to pick their noses and eat any boogers they extract.

why would eating boogers be a selective advantage? They eat each other's boogers as well? the wild males are never observed participating?

FWIW, many birds eat other birds - not just raptors and carrion eaters. I just read the book "A Bird's IQ", which has many references to it.

I suspect it is not just when fruit is scarce many if not most primates are omnivores. Fruit is likely easier than meat most of the time but meat contains dense nutrients. Macaques e.g crab eating macaques routinely eat meat.

I was taught this in school thirty years ago. Is this not a known thing?

there was a recent story about squirrels in rural California opportunistically hunting and eating field mice and vols that's due to an explosion the latters' population and high availability. Not driven by scarcity of default food sources.

What does this say about humans?

Obligatory Python sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deoNAOfkXxc&t=2s

My first, or original impression, which is why it stuck, was that they'd not been stranded for long, but without delay, begin considering who's on the menu. I am not sure why I remember it that way, so I will have to watch it again. Whether misinterpretation or not, it landed on me as a cathartic mockery of human metabolism, or, cannibalism.

Eating other animals and being able to digest other animals can be two different things. Feels like that should have been a part of such an article.