Moth Makes Different Chemical Weapons for Different Predators

You should never bring a knife to gunfight, or try to beat a bird with ant repellant. That's how the expression would go if a wood tiger moth coined it, anyway. Other animals are lucky if they have the resources to make just one poison. But this moth is the first species known to make two different chemical weapons that target different predators. The moth, Arctia plantaginis, lives throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Its wings are bright and boldly patterned, a tactic that many animals use to warn predators they're poisonous or bad-tasting (because even better than tasting gross to your enemy is never ending up in its mouth at all). If a predator does attack, the wood tiger moth may ooze liquids from two parts of its body. It secretes fluids from its abdomen "in response to subtle disturbances," write Bibiana Rojas of the University of Jyväskylä in Finland and ...