Self-made chemical weapons *
A frog from the family Dendrobates. Other poisonous frogs do not produce poisons but only store them
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Many tropical frogs use chemical weapons as a defense. These are toxic compounds found in the skin, which can cause convulsions or other unpleasant symptoms in predators who are lucky enough to touch or taste the frogs. But these poisonous frogs were always considered as "weapons stores" and not as "factories" for its production. According to the explanation, they did not produce the toxic compounds themselves but simply stored the compounds that came from the insects that the frogs ate.
But now, scientists from the National Institutes of Health in the United States and the National Aquarium in Baltimore have discovered that certain poisonous frogs have the qualities of chemists. These frogs, from the Dendrobates family, produce venom from the insects they feed on and increase its strength.
The scientists discovered this by accident, while studying the degree of efficiency of the frogs in collecting compounds from different sources. They studied one group of nitrogen compounds, known as DHQ, that the frogs produce from ants; and another group, PTX, which originates from unknown insects.
The researchers fed the frogs synthetic compounds DHQ and PTX. When they analyzed the toxic compounds in the frogs' skin, they found that 80% of the PTX had been converted to a much more toxic form that causes convulsions and death in mice at a dose five times smaller than the original compound. The findings were reported in the journal "Academy of Sciences Proceedings of the National."
The researchers conducted similar experiments with poisonous frogs of other species, and did not discover a strengthened PTX compound in them. The results, according to them, indicate that although many frogs accumulate toxic substances without making any changes to them, frogs from the Dendrobates family have developed during evolution a unique enzyme that can change one type of compounds.
New York Times
They know evolution in action
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