Poisonous Frogs with Ants in their Pants

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• rockerface@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Isn’t that also how fugu gets its poison too? I think the pufferfish grown on farms where their diet is regulated aren’t poisonous.

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  • boydster@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    TIL… Thank you, kind stranger, for making me curious enough to look further

    en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugu

    Researchers have determined that a fugu’s tetrodotoxin comes from eating other animals infested with tetrodotoxin-laden bacteria, to which the fish develops insensitivity over time.[10] Whether tetrodotoxin is sequestered from or produced by symbiotic bacteria is still debated.[11] As such, efforts have been made in research and aquaculture to allow farmers to produce safe fugu. Farmers now produce poison-free fugu by keeping the fish away from the bacteria – see § Aquaculture below.[10]

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    • Ephera@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Would’ve been funny, if a fish was somehow snacking ants on the regular. 🙃

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  • Ledericas@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    yup, another toxin called batrachtoxin, comes from eating specific beetles, by the frogs. once they are fed from a non-beetle diet they arnt poisonous.

    if it were something like a cane toad, they dont need other animals to make thier toxins.

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• courgette@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Then … how do ants become poisonous?

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  • MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    They eat even tinier frogs.

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    • boo_@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Frogs and ants all the way down

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  • Ephera@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I mean, it’s gonna depend on the specific ant species. Some ants don’t sting at all. Some ants only have formic acid. Some ants’ venom tickles. Some ant venom can kill you.

    But to quote Wikipedia for one of the latter, the Jack Jumper ant:

    The retractable sting is located in their abdomen, attached to a single venom gland connected by the venom sac, which is where the venom is accumulated. Exocrine glands are known in jack jumpers, which produce the venom compounds later used to inject into their victims.

    It then goes on to list all kinds of those compounds: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_jumper_ant#Venom

    I don’t have much deeper knowledge than that, but at that point, it might as well be a mixture of some compounds that they ingest and some that they produce from simpler compounds. At the very least, they would need to ingest appropriate atoms/molecules in some form, like for example nitrogen, which is contained in relatively many of those compounds.

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• thenextguy@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Thanks, ants.

  Thants.

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  • frigidaphelion@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Look around you! Just look around you!

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• Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  First the thing with crows, and now this… Are we sure ants having figured out how to make computers and are now spreading propaganda online? 🤔

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• frigidaphelion@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Many species of poison dart frogs derive their toxic compounds from ingesting mites! Even crazier, some molluscs like the Blue Angel sea slug (glaucus atlanticus) can ingest and weaponize the nematocysts from siphonophores like the Portuguese Man O’ War. Nature be crazy

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• Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I don’t like em puttin chemicals in the ants that turn the friggin frogs poisonous

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• mayo_cider@hexbear.net ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Clearly it’s not that great of a poison

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• RedSnt@feddit.dk ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I swear I had just gotten the bugsnax song out of my head. Back to square one.

  Kinda bug and kinda snack Try to catch 'em in your trap Feed somebody and you’ll see We are whatever we eat

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