A new study has found that lizards that eat fire ants – a venomous, invasive pest found in many parts of the world – could gain a measure of protection against their stinging bites.
) are native to South America and considered an invasive pest in the US, their bites triggering an immune response in a wide range of species.The ants have been present in the same range as the lizards for 70 years, and scientists noticed that these lizards have a different immune profile from eastern fence lizards that don't live near fire ants. So they conducted a study, exposing these latter"naive" lizards to fire ant venom.
For a period of three weeks, one group of 17 lizards was fed fire ants , and another group of 18 lizards were bitten by fire ants , three times a week. When the three weeks were up, the lizards were assessed for six different measures of immune response. "We conducted a comprehensive assessment of most branches of the immune system, including measures of the innate immune system – resources that an individual is born with – and the adaptive immune system, which develops immune resources after exposure to a foreign substance like an infection or vaccine,""This allowed us to see how different immune resources are allocated in response to fire ant exposure.
Compared against the Stung group, the Fed lizards had three elevated immune measures. They had an increase in a type of white blood cell called
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