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The newly described nemertides attack tiny channels in cell walls that control the amount of sodium flowing in and out of the cell. Much vital cell business, such as communications between nerves, depends on the right flux through these voltage-gated sodium channels, as they’re called. Injections of small amounts of one of these nemertides permanently paralyzed or killed invasive green crabs (
Carcinus maenas) and young cockroaches (
Blattella germanica).
“This study certainly has a lot of novelty to it, since marine worms are a tremendously neglected area of venom research,” says Bryan Grieg Fry at the University of Queensland in Australia, where he explores the evolution of animal poisons.