Plant Makes Fake 'Poop' to Fool Dung Beetles
Antelope dung (left) and C.
Antelope dung (left) and C. argenteneum dung-resembling seed (right).
Jeremy Midgley, University of Cape Town
Animals That Look Like Poop: Photos
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It's a rough-and-tumble world in the animal kingdom. Some creatures survive on strength, others on sheer guile, and others by, well, looking like poop. Following are a few examples of animals that aren't too proud to dress down to keep themselves safe and keep food on the table. First, we see Arkys curtulus , aka "the bird-dropping spider." It really has the poo look down. Top 10 Things Poop Makes Better
Peter Woodard, Wikimedia Commons
View Caption + #2: Here's a giant swallowtail butterfly (
Papilio cresphontes ) larva looking not-yummy. If you were a predator, would you eat one if you didn't have to? Dogs Have a Butt Compass, Poop Facing N/S Pole
Ianaré Sévi/WikiMedia Commons
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You're thinking this is a worm, right? Well, it looks like one, except it's underwater and goes by the only slightly more appealing name of "common sea cucumber." It's adept at blending in with its surroundings -- and looking like ... you know. VIDEO: Poop Shield Could Protect Astronauts
Erin Silversmith/WikiMedia Commons
View Caption + #4: Here's another bird-dropping spider (
Celaenia excavata ). The key to dodging predators and living for another day, it will tell you, is to look like a Whitman's holiday sampler gone horribly wrong. PHOTOS: Golden Spider Silk Makes Rare Cloth
Fir0002/WikiMedia Commons
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Meet Pasilobus, another spider that doesn't mind looking like crap. As for exactly why spiders don't seem to mind the raw-sewage look ... your guess is as good as ours. Zoo Doo: Giraffe, Zebra Poop for Sale
Vipin Baliba/Flickr
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Seeds of a South African plant look and smell just like antelope poop — the better to attract the attention of beetles.
The seeds, produced by the plant Ceratocaryum argenteum , fool dung beetles, which roll the seeds away and bury them, later resulting in a new plant. T
The discovery, published in the journal Nature Plants, adds to the growing body of evidence that plants can be clever, even without a brain.
Most adult animals on Earth share one thing in common: brown poop. But what's in it that makes it that particular color? Trace does the dirty work to find out.
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The study is also the first to confirm that such an unusual form of deception occurs to benefit plant seed dispersal. As for how the unusual phenomenon first emerged, author Jeremy Midgley of the University of Cape Town told Discovery News, “I guess that a mutant individual, which had some chemical on the seed coat, attracted the odd beetle and the seed was buried. This plant then did very well because fewer seeds were discovered and eaten by small mammals, and that fires damaged fewer of the buried seeds.”
Midgley and his team analyzed the volatile chemicals given off by the seeds, as well as by dung from elands and bonteboks (two types of antelopes from the region). Sure enough, the smell-related chemicals in the seeds were very similar to those emitted from the antelope poop.
The deception is a win-win for the plant, since the poor dung beetles get no reward for helping the plant increase its numbers. Often deception between insects and plants does lead to a reward.
For example, some flowers lure bees in because the bee thinks it is going to mate with another bee. At least the deceived animal may come out with some nutrients from the plant. But dung beetles get zilch from the stinky seeds. So the researchers were surprised by the findings.
“Dung beetles have great olfactory senses, so they may not be that easy to fool,” Midgley said.
Perhaps the dung beetles even help fertilize the seeds, by burying them near some of their actual collected poop? Midgley thinks not because, he said, “the beetles are quite small and roll one dung pellet at a time and tend to bury them singly. Also, seeds only germinate after fire, and by then any dung would have dissolved.”
The overall system is brilliant, though, and ultimately benefits all. The antelopes feast on plants. These antelopes create poop that the dung beetles eat. The beetles, in turn, help produce more plants.
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