YosemiteSam
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Researchers have found that a giant African rat can incapacitate and even kill large predators by utilizing the same plants that African tribesmen use to poison their arrows.
The African crested rat has been known to kill local dogs, but researchers have just figured out how. After chewing the "poison-arrow plant," the oversized rodent stores its poison-laced spit in special hollow hairs in its mohawk. Then, when a predator grabs the rat, the animal gets stung with the poison and spit-tipped hairs that can sicken and kill.
"This is the first mammal that is borrowing a deadly poison from a plant and slathering it on itself without dying," said study researcher Jonathan Kingdon, of Oxford University in England. "This is an extraordinary thing to have evolved."
Complete Story
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Researchers have found that a giant African rat can incapacitate and even kill large predators by utilizing the same plants that African tribesmen use to poison their arrows.
The African crested rat has been known to kill local dogs, but researchers have just figured out how. After chewing the "poison-arrow plant," the oversized rodent stores its poison-laced spit in special hollow hairs in its mohawk. Then, when a predator grabs the rat, the animal gets stung with the poison and spit-tipped hairs that can sicken and kill.
"This is the first mammal that is borrowing a deadly poison from a plant and slathering it on itself without dying," said study researcher Jonathan Kingdon, of Oxford University in England. "This is an extraordinary thing to have evolved."
Complete Story
