Weaponised eggs turn stomachs

摘要

Only one animal - the fearless fire ant - eats the eggs of channelled apple snails (Pomacea canaliculata), and now we know why. The eggs contain an enzyme inhibitor that makes them, quite literally, indigestible. The snails are the first animal found to use this tactic to repel predators. The eggs are laced with ovorubin, a bright red protein that Horacio Heras and colleagues at the National University of La Plata in Argentina have found is key to their impregnability.