this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2024
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Huh, that’s really interesting about the butterflies. Do you know if that’s how Pipevines & Viceroys developed their poison?
I didn’t know there were poisonous butterflies until I read about Pipevines coating their clutches with poison for protection.
I found out about mushrooms the fun way.
Viceroys usually trap their enemies in a closed room and let in poison gas.
Well, that’s awesome. I hope to photograph a Viceroy one day, but I don’t think I’m in their current habitat.
I baby sat for a kid whose mom was a herpetologist. She showed me the line on the Viceroy’s wings, differentiating it from a Monarch, and taught me it was poisonous to predators.
Then she stuck a snapping turtle in my face, scarring me for life. She was pretty damn awesome.
I’m not sure if you missed the Star Wars reference or not?
…dammit. 🫥
Yes, evolution is a reaction in response to stimuli and dangers present in their environment. Another example this time provided by Darwin is the case with peppered moths. The majority were white colored as they found protection being blended in to the light colored environment.
The industrial revolution introduced pollution that changed the color of nature, in response the black colored moths quickly gained the majority because they blended in better so they had a greater chance to survive, years later once the pollution improved the white moths once again thrived because of the incredibly complex quick acting process of natures natural selection.
Ah, very cool! Thanks! I remember the Pepper Moths lesson from bio, but guess I just never considered that butterflies may have evolved into poison production for protection.
Appreciate the info!
Fun fact about mushroom toxicity by contrast. Because the mushroom is only the reproductive organ of the organism, and you're basically doing it a favour by picking it and spreading its spores everywhere, theres no evolutionary pressure for it to evolve toxicity to humans. So the compounds in mushrooms that are toxic to us likely exist for other purposes, and are only toxic to us by coincidence.
For this reason the proportion of species of mushrooms that are safe vs. the number that are toxic is greater than with plants. Because plants have had selective pressure to evolve poisons that discourage or prevent herbivory. So if you walk into an unfamiliar forest and pick one plant and one mushroom to eat at random, it's more likely the plant is the bigger danger.
Of course I absolutely do not condone eating plants or fungi at random unless you intend to have a painful death.