The caterpillar knows how to release the smoke to protect himself

The researchers were surprised to find that a caterpillar that feeds on toxic tobacco leaves of nicotine has used the "release of toxic smoke" technique to ward off predators.

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Until recently, scientists were still not sure how the tobacco horns treated nicotine addictive and turned it into a weapon against how hungry the spider was. They eventually discovered that a portion of the toxic substance seeped into the insect's blood, while the rest excreted through tiny pores in the skin and became a weapon to chase effective enemies.

Page 1 9 quoted Ian Baldwin, a molecular biologist from the Max-Planck Institute of Chemical Biology (Germany), saying that tobacco horn caries can control nicotine better than any other animal on the left. The soil and each day consume 6 times the toxic level of dangerous life to humans.

The caterpillars of the tobacco horn worm know to excrete toxic nicotine through the breathing holes in the skin to ward off the hungry wolf spiders.(Photo: Corbis)

To find out why tobacco hornworm is so great at nicotine treatment, Professor Baldwin and colleagues altered some of North American tobacco plants, causing them to stop producing nicotine and growing trials. experience in Utah (USA).

The team then monitored the overnight survival rate of the caterpillars that had been altered against the normal moths and herbivores. They found that the caterpillars that consumed nicotine-free food were more likely to die because the wolf spider - the creature of the same area - attacked.

Scientists tested the spider spider's eating habits in the lab and found that the creature does not like to absorb nicotine. This implies, caterpillars have used that toxic substance to survive.

A previous study discovered that CYP6B46 gene , which is expressed in the intestine of caterpillars, is not actively active in plant-eating caterpillars that contain less nicotine. After creating the "disabling" gene for CYP6B46, the researchers found that caterpillars consume these plants to become more attractive prey to spiders.

CYP6B46 was found to remove 0.65% of the nicotine from the caterpillar's intestine and transport it into the "client's" blood, while most of the toxic substance is excreted in tiny skin pores. The amount of nicotine released outside this way warns the spiders that caterpillars are toxic.