Killer flatworms hunt with poison.Five years ago, marine biologist marine biologist specialist in the biology of marine life. Raphael Ritson-Williams was collecting flatworms in the waters around the Pacific island of Guam, when he found a new species. He put the oval, filmy, yellow flatworm flatworm: see Platyhelminthes; worm. flatworm or platyhelminth Any of a phylum (Platyhelminthes) of soft-bodied, usually much-flattened worms, including both free-living and parasitic species. in a container for further study. On the same collecting trip, Ritson-Williams picked up a type of shelled sea creature called a cowrie cowrie or cowry (both: kou`rē), common name applied to marine gastropods belonging to the family Cypraeidae, a well-developed family of marine snails found in the tropics. and put it in the same container with the flatworm. He planned to give the cowrie to a friend who was studying these mollusks. When he checked the container after a while, however, something had changed. The flatworm "was really fat," Ritson-Williams says. And all that was left of the cowrie was an empty, speckled speck·led adj. 1. Dotted or covered with speckles, especially flecked with small spots of contrasting color. 2. Of a mixed character; motley. Adj. 1. shell-and a mystery. The silver-dollar-sized flatworm had eaten the mollusk mollusk: see Mollusca. mollusk or mollusc Any of some 75,000 species of soft-bodied invertebrate animals (phylum Mollusca), many of which are wholly or partly enclosed in a calcium carbonate shell secreted by the mantle, a soft , but it had no teeth or any other obvious weapons. Instead, as tests showed, the flatworm contained a poison called tetrodotoxin tetrodotoxin /tet·ro·do·tox·in/ (tet´ro-do-tok?sin) a highly lethal neurotoxin present in numerous species of puffer fish and in certain newts (in which it is called tarichatoxin . It's the same poison found in a number of other creatures, including puffer puffer, common name for some tropical marine fish of the family Tetraodontidae. The puffers and their allies, the boxfish, the porcupinefish, and the ocean sunfish or headfish, form an odd group (order Tetraodontiformes). fish, several types of frogs, North America's rough-skinned newt, the blue-ringed octopus, and some other flatworms. Now, Ritson-Williams and his coworkers are trying to figure out how the flatworms use tetrodotoxin. In one experiment, the scientists watched flatworms kill at least 30 different species of mollusks, including ones with protective trap doors. The flatworms appear to enclose the shelled creatures with toxin-laced water. In another experiment to test the use of the toxin defensively, the researchers fed flatworms to wild fish. Many of the fish gobbled up the flatworms, and none seemed to get sick right away. This suggests that tetrodotoxin helps flatworms kill, but it doesn't protect adult flatworms from being eaten. The flatworm's eggs have a lot of tetrodotoxin. Other researchers have suggested that the toxin might help defend the eggs, but Ritson-Williams hasn't tested this idea yet. Where the poison comes from is another mystery. Some scientists suggest that the flatworms get tetrodotoxin from bacteria that live inside them. http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20060222/NOte2.asp |
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