Tomatoes make caterpillars to cannibals

Tomato perennials look harmless at first - but: for caterpillars they can be a death trap. Because the tomato can make their wrath enemies to regular cannibals.

Scientists have investigated the defenses that tomatoes produce in their leaves in order to make them indigestible for human glanders.

It has already been known that, among other things, tomato poisons and other defenses are produced against giddy enemies. Researchers from the University of Wisconsin have put this in the lead for a study in the NATURE Ecology & Evolution brochure. They have let loose particularly hungry caterpillars on prepared tomato plants - result: plants, which were not sprayed at all or only with small amounts of their own repellent, were counted bald. Tomatoes, however, whose leaves had received a great deal of protection, were spared.

They were so inedible for the caterpillars that they preferred to intercept each other.