PHYSICOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF WILDLIFE GEOPHAGIC SOIL: A PRELIMINARYASSESSMENT FOR POSSIBLE UTILIZATION IN PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIES

The act of consuming soil (geophagy) has been reported both in man and wildlife. Most previous studies have concentrated more on various type geophagic soilswith less attention termite mounds (TMs), thus limiting our understanding the cause(s) geophagy. This study investigated physico-chemical constituents wildlife TMsincomparison with non-geophagic forest (FS). Composite samples were collected each from four different TMs a FS. Samples analyzed for pH, texture, electrical conductivity (EC), water retention capacity (WRC), moisture content (MC) colour.Soils triplicates following standard methods. Datagenerated statisticallywith SPSS version 17.Theresult indicated acidic pH TMs(strongly to slightly acidic) FS (slightly acidic). Clay content, EC, WRC MC significantly higher than FS.The colour ranged reddish brown(4R 4/5) dark brown (2.5R 5/7 or 5R 6/8) as against that which was black (2R 2/4). Wildlife may be preference for; detoxification (high clay content), ant-diarrhea MC), Fe-supplement (brown TMs) dissolved salt EC). Detailed intomineralogical microbiological compositions needed further justify rolesof geophagy