{"id":1639,"date":"2024-03-17T02:09:57","date_gmt":"2024-03-17T02:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/17\/older-monarch-caterpillars-binge-on-toxic-milkweed-goo\/"},"modified":"2024-03-17T02:09:57","modified_gmt":"2024-03-17T02:09:57","slug":"older-monarch-caterpillars-binge-on-toxic-milkweed-goo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/17\/older-monarch-caterpillars-binge-on-toxic-milkweed-goo\/","title":{"rendered":"Older monarch caterpillars binge on toxic milkweed goo"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Maybe science has misunderstood the dining style of big monarch butterfly caterpillars. What insect watchers have called defense against the toxic latex a milkweed plant oozes may not be avoidance at all. Instead of dodging the plants\u2019 sticky, white toxic goo, the plump, older caterpillars could be gorging on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monarch caterpillars (Danaus plexippus<\/em>) hatch and feed on milkweeds, which fight back when bitten and ooze milky toxin-rich latex. Monarchs evolved their own counter-chemistry for surviving the toxins. Yet that plant latex can still kill by sheer gooeyness, explains ecologist Georg Petschenka of University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany.\u00a0 Very tiny, recently hatched caterpillars can get fatally stuck with mouthparts clogged.<\/p>\n\n\n