Arsenic-absorbing fern

In this photo released from the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Bala Rathinasabapathi, an associate professor of horticultural sciences, observes a grasshopper crawling on a brake fern in his laboratory in Gainesville – March 26, 2007. Brake ferns can store large quantities of arsenic, possibly to ward off predators. Rathinasabapathi conducted experiments showing grasshoppers shunned the plants when they were full of the toxic metal, but ate them otherwise.

(Eric Zamora, University of Florida/IFAS)
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