#537: The Hidden Knowledge of Animals — Mark Plotkin on Nature’s Medicine Cabinet

Well hello boys and girls, this is Tim Ferris, and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show. This special episode features Dr. Mark Plotkin. He is a very popular guest, and he's back by popular demand on many levels. Mark, you can find him at Doc MarkPlotkin, P-L-O-T-K-I-N on Twitter. is an ethnobotanist who serves as president of the Amazon conservation team or ACT A C T. Done a lot of work with ACT. They have partnered with roughly eighty tribes in South America. Predominantly, to map and improve management and protection of roughly one hundred million acres of ancestral rainforests. He is best known to the general public as the author of the book Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice. which is one of the most popular books ever written about the rainforest. His most recent book is The Amazon, subtitle What Everyone Needs to Know. And you can find my first interview with Mark where we cover his bio, his amazing amazing resume, his adventures with Richard Evan Schultz with indigenous tribes, everything he's learned from

Western science and the various compounds he has firsthand experience using at Tim.blog slash Markplotkin. He's also host of the Plants of the Gods podcast. Through which you can learn about everything from hallucinogenic snuffs to the diverse formulations of Curare. Each episode basically covers a given. Plant Curare, by the way, doesn't just relax the muscles of the body and lead to asphyxiation. if used for hunting, for instance. Uh it also led to modern

Anesthesia. in many senses. So there's a lot to it. So check out Plants of the Gods. Today's episode focuses on how animals use medicinal plants and it has some wild stories related to what we can learn and what we can use. From uh the behaviors of cows, penguins, pigs, frogs, and everything in between. There's a lot of hidden wisdom.

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