Animals that steal the poison of another species

A clone, less than 1 cm long, but its poison is enough to kill a few people. It is worth mentioning that it is the poison that takes over the kind of poisonous bug that it often takes. In the natural world, not many animals like that.

Not long ago scientists discovered in the forest on an island of Cuba a strange species of frog living on trees. It is less than 10mm long, scientifically known as Eleutherodactylus , can fit in the palm. But don't touch it. It is very poisonous .

Eleutherodactylus poison is less than 10mm long, fits in the palm.(Photo: Pravda)

On its skin, thousands of glands secrete lethal alkaloids , penetrate the skin when exposed, cause the heart to beat, and after a few minutes stop immediately. Analyzing these toxins, scientists found clones ' taking over ' them from food. It turns out that the favorite dish of a clone is a kind of aphid containing poison but this poison does not do anything fake.

It only transfers from the stomach to the parathyroid glands. It is known that when imitated and raised with other insects without toxins, it is not poisonous. But if they drop them into nature, they choose their favorite food, they 'show up ' as poisonous frogs.

The animals themselves do not create such toxins, called ' secondary poison ' - very popular in nature, including many common animals including insects, mollusks, worms and even animals more spine. Often, these animals use only ' borrowed ' toxins for self-defense purposes without being used as an offensive weapon, but sometimes there are exceptions.

Typically, a poisonous snake ( Rhabdophis tigrina ) lives in many parts of East Asia taking advantage of poisons to attack other prey. This carnivorous species from the glands secrete toxins to hunt. That poison, they are taken from toads and poisonous.

Scientists experimented with dividing the aforementioned snakes into three groups and rearing them with different foods, a group fed with poisonous amphibians, a group that only fed common fish and clones; the third group fed mixed. After a few weeks they found that the groups 1 and 3 were all poisonous (by killing their prey), group 2 did not kill their prey. Since then, they have concluded that there are cases where they use poison from prey to attack other animals. However, the appropriating poison is not the prey of the prey, but only the ingredients that work best .

Why is it so simple for some carnivores to ' occupy ' other species' poisons? These toxins are not easy to synthesize and require a lot of energy and as we all know, every animal tries to save in its life. ' Robbery ' of other people's poisonous products is the wisest way, to avoid losing production.

Guinnea flute (Pitohui dichrous) has a similar poison to poison.(Photo: Pravda)

Their savings are sometimes interesting. For example, Pitohui dichrous birds living in New Guinnea contain a lot of toxins to protect themselves, making snakes and other raptors do not dare to touch them. This poison is very similar to the aforementioned batrakhotoxin of the South American clone, which they possess of the local poisonous bug, Choresine pulchra . But recently scientists have discovered that this beetle does not produce its own toxins. It is due to the meticulous search of poisonous plants.

So there was a double borrowing : birds borrowed from beetles and beetles borrowed from trees. This is not the same except in the South American clones just mentioned.

Sometimes this secondary poison becomes harmless. Biologists have long known that porcupines have a habit of licking saliva on their thorny hairs but they wonder why. Among them is the zoologist Edmond Braudi, Philadelphia University, so he paid attention.

He observed a long-eared porcupine living in Southern Brasilia and Africa and found that when he ate the toad, he first looked for the glands behind the toad's eyes, chewing away to mix his saliva with the substance. Someone in the poison's toad glands then smeared on its thorns, then eat the toad. He recounted, " I saw the animal roll to the ground like a dead stream, its mouth was foamy and it took those bubbles and licked its prickly feathers ."

After many observations of the porcupine, he concluded, he knew how to use the poison borrowed from the toad to increase the defenses of the thorns. It may be easy to understand why before eating, porcupines have the habit of licking such prickly feathers. They borrowed someone else's weapons to kill anyone who dared to touch me.

The porcupine gentle we keep the scene, if accidentally dropped into the garden can very poison you when lovingly stroking it . If you encounter a strange hedgehog in the forest or at the park without knowing its behavior, don't rush to show affection by touching its fur. Maybe he just had a hearty party with toads in the bush.