Pest & Termite Control Blog

Tomato Plants Turn Caterpillars Into Cannibals

There are billions of different plants in the world, and not many of them are capable of killing animals endowed with the benefit of locomotion. However, some plants possess effective self-defense capabilities, and if you enjoy eating tomatoes, then you will appreciate the tomato plants unique method of self-defense. Recent studies show that tomato plants emit chemicals that can turn tomato-hungry caterpillars into cannibals.

Caterpillars are naturally attracted to tomato plants, and any tomato farmer can tell you that caterpillars love to feast on tomatoes. Of course, caterpillars only feast on tomatoes when they are hungry, and tomato plants use the caterpillars’ unfulfilled appetite to its advantage. According to researchers, tomato plants release a chemical that makes caterpillars lose their taste for tomatoes. As a result, the caterpillars cannot find food, which causes them to eventually resort to cannibalism.

Once a caterpillar begins to feast on a tomato plant, the tomatoes release a chemical called methyl jasmonate. This chemical then travels through the air and likely warns other tomatoes within a crop that ravenous caterpillars are in the area. Other tomatoes within a crop recieve this message and, in turn, release methyl jasmonate as well. Once caterpillars catch a whiff of this chemical, they become uninterested in consuming tomatoes. However, the caterpillars remain starving, so they have no choice but to eat other caterpillars.

Scientists tested this hypothesis by spraying various tomatoes within a crop with methyl jasmonate. After the tomatoes were sufficiently sprayed with this chemical, researchers let numerous caterpillars loose within the tomato crop. Sure enough, after a week had passed by, nearly all of the caterpillars had been killed.

Despite the success of the experiment, the lead researcher does not want the public to assume that tomatoes release a chemical that turns living things into zombies. The reason for the cannibalistic behavior is most likely due to an alteration in the tomatoes nutrient content. So you can go on eating tomatoes without worrying about eating your co-worker.

Have you ever heard of any other plant that is somehow able to defend itself against certain types of insects? If so, then which type of insects and plants were they?

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The world is a pretty dangerous place for insects, with only the clever or terrifying able to survive out in nature. The number one rule in nature is that you must find a way to not get yourself eaten. Usually this means you must run, hide, or fight. While I generally think of insects using venom or frightening claws to get predators off their backs, there is another way that works pretty well for some. If you can make yourself look like something that those predators don’t find tasty, then there’s a good chance that they won’t even bother with you. Scientists recently discovered a spider that tricks predators into leaving it alone by looking and even walking like a nasty ant. And they take this mimicking business to the extreme.

Scientist Paul Shamble was walking around in the New York woods one day, and noticed a kind of jumping spider crawling around among the foliage. This in itself was not immediately strange, but then he realized the spider was walking in a strange and kind of funny manner. What Shamble thought was funny turned out to be the spider actually mimicking the walk of an ant, something spiders aren’t generally known to do. He concluded that it must be some form of mimicry, as many different insects will mimic the color and/or shape of other usually-poisonous insects in order to fool predators. While predators might find the jumping spider quite tasty, they definitely won’t find an ant to be very appetizing. Ants are filled with lots of powerful chemicals that make them taste bad to most other insect predators.

Shamble decided to take the spider back to his lab to study. It was clear that the spider’s body mimicked the shape of an ant, but what was more astounding was the way they walked like ants. One thing the spider did was walk in very winding paths, which is similar to the way ants walk when they are following a chemical trail left by other ants in their nest. But these spiders didn’t simply walk in a winding path like the ants. They had an even better trick up their sleeve. While walking like an ant the spider would also hold up its two front legs out in front of their head, making them look quite convincingly like an ant’s antennae. When testing his theory by showing predatory jumping spiders animations of regular jumping spiders as well as a these ant-mimicking jumping spiders. The predators went for the regular spider every time, barely even glancing at the ones mimicking ants. I guess if you look like an ant and walk like an ant…

Have you ever seen an insect moving or acting in a strange way? Did you find out why they were doing this?

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