Washington, Aug 10 (ANI): Plant insects have a unique way of escaping predators – they sense the mammal’s breath.
The insects sense mammalian breath and simply drop to the ground to avoid being gobbled up.
Moshe Inbar of the University of Haifa in Israel conducted the experiment.
The researchers allowed a goat to feed on potted alfalfa plants infested with aphids.
"Strikingly, 65 percent of the aphids in the colonies dropped to the ground right before they would have been eaten along with the plant," the researchers write.
While a quarter of the aphids dropped when plants were shaken, more than half fell to the ground in response to a lamb”s breath, the researchers report.
They found that when the controlled airstream was both warm and humid, it lead to impressive dropping rates of 87 percent in a room with otherwise low humidity.
"We predict that this sort of escape behavior in response to mammalian breath may be found among other invertebrates that live on plants and face the same threat," they conclude.
The study is published in the latest issue of Current Biology. (ANI)
