A peptide toxin found in the highly potent venom of a sea snail is also found in the wings of a seemingly harmless butterfly, say Austrian scientists. Now they need to try to understand how and why a sea snail and a butterfly come to share the same toxin.
The sea snail in question is a species of predatory cone snail known as Conus marmoreus found in the Indian and Pacific oceans, which uses its venom to paralyze small fish and marine molluscs prior to eating them. The venom consists of a family of peptide toxins known as contryphans that can block calcium channels in nerve cells, inducing paralysis, and is incredibly powerful, such that one drop can apparently kill more than 20 men.
So it came as something of a surprise when a team of Austrian scientists led by Gert Lubec at the Medical University of Vienna detected one of these contryphans, known as glacontryphan-M, in the wings of the butterfly Hebomoia glaucippe, known as the great orange tip (see photo). Found all over southeast Asia, H. glaucippe was not previously known for its deadly toxicity.
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butterfly yuki pictures
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