Female Newts Found More Poisonous Than Males miragenews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from miragenews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Female toxin-producing newts are surprisingly more poisonous than males phys.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from phys.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
<p>Newts of the genus <em>Taricha </em>produce tetrodotoxin, a powerful neurotoxin. Previously, scientists thought this was purely a chemical defense against predators, but they didn’t know how it was produced or how it might vary between males and females — important information for understanding the toxin’s functions. Researchers sampled wild newts to test for differences between the sexes and how these might vary over the breeding season. They found that females have consistently higher levels of toxins than males.</p>