An Amazonian frog has a secret weapon that protects it from being attacked by ants.
Lithodytes lineatus, which lives in the Amazon region of South America, free of attack by leaf-cutting ants gives off a chemical scent that makes the ants think it’s one of them.
Leaf-cutter ants, whose colonies can total 1 million members, use chemical odours for communication and recognition of their own kind.
Mimicry is not unusual in the animal kingdom, whether it’s spiders pretending to be ants, birds looking like caterpillars, or wild cats sounding like their prey. But scent mimicry is rarely seen in vertebrates, say scientists from Brazil’s National Institute of Amazonian Research.
In a second experiment, researchers covered 10 Rhinella major frogs with skin extract taken from Lithodytes lineatus, and 10 with ultrapure water.
The results were conclusive: the team observed the ants attacking the frogs covered with the water, while the remaining frogs coated with the skin extract were left unharmed.
Picture Credit : Google
