Researchers have been honour baby lobster poop in ordering to forecast out how these marine snappers are able-bodied to raven poisonous Portuguese man-of-war without their gut being sting . Reporting their finding in the journalPlankton and Benthos Research , the field of study writer from Hiroshima University discover how the poo pellets were coated with a peculiar membrane that give up certain substances to pass through while keeping the lobster protect from thejellyfish stingers .
The larva , or phyllosoma , of the fan lobster cruise around the ocean with a voracious hungriness , which they satisfy by sequester to the bodies ofjellyfishand devouring them alive . However , scientists have for some time struggled to get their head around how these bantam lobsters - in - breeding eat their prey ’s stinger without succumbing to the venom .
Jellyfish , like the Japanese sea nettle , are arm with what the study authors name as “ spitefulness - filled explosively penetrantcnidae , ” which are like tiny harpoon that are discharge into victims ’ bodies , filling them with toxin . Yet for some ground , the intestine of lobster phyllosoma look not to be affected by this munition .
To investigate , the researchers upgrade fanlobsterlarvae in the lab , fertilise them exclusively on Japanese sea nettle jellyfish . When analyse the flyspeck crustacean ’ feces , they discovered that this body waste was encased in a peritrophic tissue layer , which keeps the cnidae under wrapper and stops them coming into contact with the intestinal wall .
" Based on the table of contents of their feces , we guess that the lobster larvae only digest fluid - type foods , which is vital to bonk as we develop an artificial solid food for farmed lobster to grow efficiently and healthily , " explain study co - writer Kaori Wakabayashi .
To confirm that the lobsters are n’t simply resistant to jellyfish maliciousness , the researchers then inject phyllosoma with crude tentacle extract , and found that this cause nine out of ten to pass . As such , it seems likely that the larvae do not digest the cnidae or their contents at all , with their dope membranes being the most obvious source of protection .
