Predatory sea snails produce weaponized insulin
Monday, January 19, 2015 - 20:20
in Biology & Nature
Some cone snails add insulin to the venom cocktail they use to catch fish, biologists have discovered. Adding the hormone to the mix of venom toxins may have enabled predatory cone snails to disable entire schools of swimming fish with hypoglycemic shock. The snail insulin could prove useful as a tool to probe the systems the human body uses to control blood sugar and energy metabolism.