Mineral lick

A mineral lick (also known as a salt lick) is a place where animals can go to lick essential mineral nutrients from a deposit of salts and other minerals. Mineral licks can be naturally occurring or artificial (such as blocks of salt that farmers place in pastures for livestock to lick). Natural licks are common, and they provide essential elements such as phosphorus and the biometals (sodium, calcium, iron, zinc, and trace elements) required for bone, muscle and other growth in herbivorous mammals such as deer, moose, elephants, tapirs, woodchucks, fox squirrels, mountain goats, porcupines, and frugivorous bats. Such licks are especially important in ecosystems such as tropical rainforests with poor general availability of nutrients. Harsh weather exposes salty mineral deposits that draw animals from miles away for a taste of needed nutrients. It is thought that certain fauna can detect calcium in salt licks. Many animals regularly visit mineral licks to consume clay, supplementing their diet with nutrients and minerals. In tropical bats, lick visitation is associated with a diet based on wild figs (Ficus), which have very low levels of sodium, and licks are mostly used by females that are pregnant or lactating. Some animals require the minerals at these sites not for nutrition, but to ward off the effects of secondary compounds that are included in the arsenal of plant defences against herbivory. The minerals of these sites usually contain calcium, magnesium, sulfur, phosphorus, potassium, and sodium. Mineral lick sites play a critical role in the ecology and diversity of organisms that visit these sites, but little is still understood about the dietary benefits. The paths animals made to natural mineral licks and watering holes became the hunting paths predators and early humans used for hunting. It is hypothesized that these salt and water paths became trails and later roads for early humans. Nonetheless, many studies have identified other uses and nutritional benefits from other micronutrients that exist at these sites, including selenium, cobalt and/or molybdenum.