The Closest I've Seen Yet to an Arthropod Super-hero Origin Story

[vimnelius]

As a reward for achieving staggering feats such as booking a rental car and scheduling the cancellation of our utilities, I have been catching up on my favorite scientific journals

Comments

[atlanticat]

>Insert catchy wrap-up line here.

Save a tick, ride a bicycle?

;)

[vimnelius]

That works as well as anything I'd come up with :)

[badnoodles]

I can think of a couple of reasons offhand.

1.) Increased membrane permeability allows pathogens to more easily penetrate the midgut and salivary glands.

2.) Flaws in the exoskeleton may allow the invasion of exogenous bacteria and fungi, which would keep the tick immune system too busy to deal with blood-borne pathogens.

3.) Improperly formed mouthparts could require a longer attachment time, which ups the liklihood of disease transmission.

I'm sure if I applied some "creative thought", I could come up with all sorts of reasons.

[vimnelius]

I'm not sure if cadmium ends up in midgut and salivary gland linings (are salivary glands derived from cuticle? I always forget). It wouldn't surprise me at all if it gets everywhere.

The paper did report that these aberrant-exoskeleton ticks also had all sorts of crazy pathogens that ticks don't normally get infected with, so your reason #2 is likely. As is #3.

[vespid_interest]

If Cadmium is "good enough" for exoskeleton, what else could they incorporate? I want insects made of gold!

Do ticks in Cadbury plants taste especially good?

[vimnelius]

Ca++ and Cd++ have very similar sizes (1.0A radius for Ca++; 0.95A radius for Cd++), so if you had another double cation with a similar size...and you achiever numerous other chemical prerequisites that I don't know off of the top of my head but I'm sure exist, you may well customize your OWN exoskeletons!