The desert woodrat nibbles on deadly meals every day, eating the toxic creosote bush that grows in the Mojave Desert in the western U.S. How does it survive chowing down on hundreds of chemicals that would be fatal for ordinary mice?
According to a new study, the rat's unusual ability stems from powerful bacteria that thrive in its digestive system and neutralize the creosete's deadly poison, National Geographic reported.
Researcher Kevin Kohl hypothesized that microbes in the woodrat's gut made it able to tolerate nordihydroguaiaretic acid or NDGA, a chemical found in the shrub's leaves that would damage the liver and kidneys of lab mice, as well as hundreds of other chemicals in the toxic resin.
Kohl used woodrats that live in the Mojave Desert and commonly feed on the creosote bush as well as some that inhabit the northern Great Basin desert and have never tried to eat the toxic plant. He found that the Mojave woodrats' digestive systems are distinct from those found in the Great Basin rats due to bacterial "communities" that can neutralize toxins.
The researcher used antibiotics to kill the microbes thriving in some of the woodrats, after which the animals could eat regular laboratory food but not the resin-heavy creosote leaves.
"[It] effectively removed 17,000 years of ecological and evolutionary experience with creosote compounds," Kohl wrote.
He also demonstrated the flip side, turning Great Basin woodrats into poison-eating Mojave rats by feeding them feces from "experienced" rats to colonize their digestive systems with bacteria, something woodrats do in the wild.
Kohl's study builds on previous research related to animals and digestive bacteria that neutralizes poison in various foods. It has been conjectured that other animals could expand their diets instantly by ingesting similar powerful bacteria.
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