CHIVALRY isn’t dead, at least not if you’re a scarlet-bodied wasp moth. A
male suitor will blanket his lady-love with fibres coated with protective
chemicals to ward off predators while they mate, researchers have found.
A team led by William Conner at Wake Forest University in North Carolina and
Thomas Eisner at Cornell University in New York state studied the moth,
Cosmosoma myrodora. They found that males of the species get tanked up on
toxic chemicals called alkaloids by feeding on fluid exuded by plants such as
dog fennel. This makes the moths unpalatable to spiders and other predators.
The…
