Fern moth caterpillars have a taste for arsenic Bill Keim
Arsenic is toxic to most multicellular life. But caterpillars of one species happily dine on arsenic-loaded leaves, even as their bodies accrue astonishing levels.
Benjamin Jaffe at the University of Wisconsin-Madison got an inkling of the unusual diet while studying a fern called ladder brake that can take up a lot of arsenic from the soil.
While examining the plants in Florida, he unexpectedly found the caterpillars of the moth Callopistria floridensis devouring them. He chemically analysed the caterpillars, which revealed they had levels of arsenic in their bodies several orders of magnitude…
