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The impossible predicament of the death newts

So a few days ago I posted about newts, and I mentioned that there was an American newt that was ridiculously toxic. But then (I said) there wasn’t space or time to go into why.

And while it will eat pretty much anything it can catch, the garter snake particularly likes amphibians: small frogs, salamanders and newts. (Note that this means the newt is double-whammied: not only does it suffer the metabolic load of carrying around all those bacteria, but it also has to evolve resistance to tetrodotoxin, accepting whatever negative effects that brings. Presumably that’s because if the newt ever tried to evolve full-body colors like an Amazonian poison dart frog, it would just be a big “come eat me” sign to garter snakes.

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