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Universal "Death Stench" Repels Bugs of All Types
Hugh Pickens writes "Wired reports that scientists have discovered that insects from cockroaches to caterpillars all emit the same stinky blend of fatty acids when they die and that the death mix may represent a universal, ancient warning signal to avoid their dead or injured. 'Recognizing and avoiding the dead could reduce the chances of catching the disease,' says Biologist David Rollo of McMaster University 'or allow you to get away with just enough exposure to activate your immunity.' Researchers isolated unsaturated fatty acids containing oleic and linoleic acids from the corpses of dead cockroaches and found that their concoction repelled not just cockroaches, but ants and caterpillars. 'It was amazing to find that the cockroaches avoided places treated with these extracts like the plague,' says Rollo. Even crustaceans like woodlice and pillbugs, which diverged from insects 400 million years ago, were repelled leading scientists to think the death mix represents a universal warning signal. Scientists hope the right concoction of death smells might protect crops. Thankfully, human noses can't detect the fatty acid extracts. 'I've tried smelling papers treated with them and don't smell anything strong and certainly not repellent,' writes Rollo in an e-mail. 'Not like the rotting of corpses that occurs later and is detectable from great distances.'"
Maybe for some bugs, but for those nasty caca roches, I get a bowl, wipe the top 4 inches around inside with vegtable oil then put whatever inside... coffee grounds, bananas... whatever... There are tons of dead ones in there but that doesn't stop more from coming. Also, cockroaches are cannibals.
The same thing works on sharks. I watched a Discovery show where they got the sharks into a feeding frenzy, dropped some of the repellent (dead shark material) into the water, and all of the sharks took off in seconds.
Thinking about it, I doubt very much that humans millennia ago smelled dead human and though, "Hey, I wonder what killed him. I'm going to go see."
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Your anecdote does nothing to invalidate the article's data.
It makes sense for any animal to avoid a site where its own are dead.
It's the same category of reflex that makes us want to throw up when someone pukes (being social animals we often eat together), that makes us universally find some smells offensive (pretty much always originally attached to something potentially toxic), etc.
May contain traces of nut.
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How are they going to use this for protecting crops? If ants are repelled, wasps and bees will be, too, and there goes your pollination.
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So the solution to live cockroaches on my floor is dead cockroaches?
As someone living in a gentrifying neighborhood, any chance this works on hipsters?... (some ground up Converse All-Stars and stovepipe jeans?)
Is this why there's an article today that RAID's days may be numbered?
A few decades ago, Edward O. Wilson proved that ants mark their trails with scent by removing their organs individually and smearing them around. Eventually he found one that would cause them to follow the trail, and would demonstrate his discovery by writing his name in ants.
I heard a recorded lecture where he told this story, and he also mentioned that they discovered the "dead ant" smell that would signal the colony that "this one is dead, go put it on the pile." When they put the scent on a live ant, the other ants would carry it off to the pile, ignoring the fact that it was squirming the whole way there. And until the stinky ant cleaned itself off enough, they would keep putting it back every time it left the pile.
Isn't it cute to note that so many /. geeks are now also apparently insect experts