Sick bugs take drugs
PLoS ONE 4, e4796 (2009)

The Very Hungry Caterpillar in Eric Carle’s children’s book, may have
been hunting for drugs as well as food. Woolly bear caterpillars
(Grammia incorrupta) normally ingest small amounts of pyrrolizidine
alkaloids to ward off parasites. Michael Singer of Wesleyan University
in Middletown, Connecticut, and his team showed that the caterpillars
ingested around twice as much of the drug when infected by maggots.
This finding suggests that self-medication is more widespread than
previously thought -- it has never been clearly demonstrated in
insects before. Previous studies by the team have shown that the taste
receptors of infected woolly bears are altered to crave more alkaloids
when they are infected.

-- 
Peter L Borst

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