71–80 of 192 posts
Could being a toxic or venemous creature be bad for survivability of a species in the long term if smarter creatures discover you’re lethal and thus become determined to kill your kind on sight?
Most people who get bitten by venomous snakes were fucking with the snake. It's a bad strategy, much better is to leave the snake alone.
But this doesn't seem as immediate as the newt's defense where it's on the skin and thus causes potential predators to spit them out or even to seize up - meaning that at least some attacked newts survive the encounter. Eating the liver means the snake is dead. And since it's going to be impossible to tell if a particular snake is immune (and is thus potentially toxic) how would this deter predators? (Especially given the limited range of snakes with this immunity and the probability that there are predators of the snakes that don't necessarily have this same limited range - ravens, raptors, etc.)
Love the title, and great article. This might be a total tangent, but every time I see “newts”, I think about how Karel Capek actually coined the word robot in his 1920 play R.U.R., and then later gave us War with the Newts...really smart amphibians. Thanks for sharing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm honestly amazed I didn't get tetrodotoxin poisoning when I was a kid. We used to play with these rough skinned newts all the time, they were everywhere, and nobody was especially diligent about washing their hands.
Same! I even kept a couple of them in a terrarium. And , my dad was a PhD in zoology, so it wasn't like I lacked access to expert advice. It was a "they have toxins on their skin, so... Eh, maybe wash your hands a bit", not "wash your hands or the whole family dies " level of concern. Makes me wonder if a) these toxicity stories are exaggerated, b) it's really regionally specific, c) toxicity has radically increased…
https://crookedtimber.org/2025/03/14/occasional-paper-the-in...
> Meanwhile, evolving resistance also comes at a cost. We don’t know that directly, but we can infer it pretty well. If resistance to tetrodotoxin were cheap and easy, everything would evolve it. [..] We don’t know, but we’re pretty sure there must be something. We know that garter snakes outside of the Pacific Northwest are much less resistant to tetrodotoxin. They’ll drop dead from doses that their Oregon cousins s…
> Turns out there is an answer: the garter snakes sequester the tetrodotoxin, storing it in their livers. This makes them toxic to their own predators. But this doesn't seem as immediate as the newt's defense where it's on the skin and thus causes potential predators to spit them out or even to seize up - meaning that at least some attacked newts survive the encounter. Eating the liver means the snake is dead. And si…
Maybe the predator's carcass next to a half eaten garter snake is meant to serve as a lesson to other potential predators.
Or perhaps the aim is not to deter but to simply take one natural predator down with them for the good of their species.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people who get bitten by venomous snakes were fucking with the snake. It's a bad strategy, much better is to leave the snake alone.
Wolves and other predators were hunted to near extinction in North America on this rationale. My mother in law kills all spiders and snakes she can on sight.
Same deal with spiders, they're obligate carnivores. If there are spiders around, that's because there are other bugs about.
Honestly I understand wolf culls a lot more. I don't agree with them, but I understand the rational motive of people who have livestock, pets, or even children.
Love the title, and great article. This might be a total tangent, but every time I see “newts”, I think about how Karel Capek actually coined the word robot in his 1920 play R.U.R., and then later gave us War with the Newts...really smart amphibians. Thanks for sharing.
As a French person, it's the first time I see this word. My brain can't help but parse the title as "death news".