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![Warm and Furry, but They Pack a Toxic Punch
Meet the African crested rat, or Lophiomys imhausi, a creature so large, flamboyantly furred and thickly helmeted it hardly seems a member of the international rat consortium. Yet it is indeed a rat, a deadly dirty rat, its superspecialized pelt permeated with potent toxins harvested from trees.
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The researchers determined that the rat spends many hours gnawing on the bark and roots of the Acokanthera tree, from which it extracts the same curare-type heart toxin that African hunters have traditionally used to kill elephants. The rat then slavers the toxic masticant onto tracts of specialized hairs running along its flank.
Those hairs, when observed under a scanning electron microscope, look very different from ordinary fur, Dr. Vollrath said. Each outer shaft is stiff and full of holes — like a dead cactus, he said — and inside are a series of long, fluffy microfibers. The researchers showed that the applied toxin seeps through the outer holes of the hairs and is wicked up and stored by the fibers, lending the rat twinned flank strips of doom.
One little nip is all it would take to sicken or even kill a predator, and the crested rat is well equipped to endure exploratory bites, Dr. Vollrath said: Its hide is unusually thick, and its head is helmeted like a turtle’s. Whether through trial and error or by following an enlightened elder’s example, Africa’s many carnivores give the rat a wide berth.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lz4p7ckSe81qbsypgo1_500.jpg)
Warm and Furry, but They Pack a Toxic Punch
Meet the African crested rat, or Lophiomys imhausi, a creature so large, flamboyantly furred and thickly helmeted it hardly seems a member of the international rat consortium. Yet it is indeed a rat, a deadly dirty rat, its superspecialized pelt permeated with potent toxins harvested from trees.
[…]
The researchers determined that the rat spends many hours gnawing on the bark and roots of the Acokanthera tree, from which it extracts the same curare-type heart toxin that African hunters have traditionally used to kill elephants. The rat then slavers the toxic masticant onto tracts of specialized hairs running along its flank.
Those hairs, when observed under a scanning electron microscope, look very different from ordinary fur, Dr. Vollrath said. Each outer shaft is stiff and full of holes — like a dead cactus, he said — and inside are a series of long, fluffy microfibers. The researchers showed that the applied toxin seeps through the outer holes of the hairs and is wicked up and stored by the fibers, lending the rat twinned flank strips of doom.
One little nip is all it would take to sicken or even kill a predator, and the crested rat is well equipped to endure exploratory bites, Dr. Vollrath said: Its hide is unusually thick, and its head is helmeted like a turtle’s. Whether through trial and error or by following an enlightened elder’s example, Africa’s many carnivores give the rat a wide berth.
![Warm and Furry, but They Pack a Toxic Punch
Meet the African crested rat, or Lophiomys imhausi, a creature so large, flamboyantly furred and thickly helmeted it hardly seems a member of the international rat consortium. Yet it is indeed a rat, a deadly dirty rat, its superspecialized pelt permeated with potent toxins harvested from trees.
[…]
The researchers determined that the rat spends many hours gnawing on the bark and roots of the Acokanthera tree, from which it extracts the same curare-type heart toxin that African hunters have traditionally used to kill elephants. The rat then slavers the toxic masticant onto tracts of specialized hairs running along its flank.
Those hairs, when observed under a scanning electron microscope, look very different from ordinary fur, Dr. Vollrath said. Each outer shaft is stiff and full of holes — like a dead cactus, he said — and inside are a series of long, fluffy microfibers. The researchers showed that the applied toxin seeps through the outer holes of the hairs and is wicked up and stored by the fibers, lending the rat twinned flank strips of doom.
One little nip is all it would take to sicken or even kill a predator, and the crested rat is well equipped to endure exploratory bites, Dr. Vollrath said: Its hide is unusually thick, and its head is helmeted like a turtle’s. Whether through trial and error or by following an enlightened elder’s example, Africa’s many carnivores give the rat a wide berth.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lz4p7ckSe81qbsypgo1_1280.jpg)
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