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Liquid capsaicin treatments for bird seed are an effective squirrel repellent. They also illustrate the evolution of this protein: birds have no receptors for
by tofof 2y ago
Liquid capsaicin treatments for bird seed are an effective squirrel repellent.
They also illustrate the evolution of this protein: birds have no receptors for capsaicin, while mammals do. Birds eat seeds mostly intactly. Their digestive systems are capable of breaking them down - but it's stochastic and some seeds make it through the bird undigested, being redistributed elsewhere. Obviously, having an agent sow your seeds widely is a fitness advantage, and so seedy plants are ultimately served well even if 90+% of their caloric investment into seeds goes into the birds.
Mammals, on the other hand, have teeth - particularly molars. Mammals that eat seeds grind them apart orally before even swallowing. As a result, any seeds ingested by mammals are very likely to be completely destroyed. Plants - peppers, anyway - found a chemical irritant that repels the mammals without even being sensed by birds.
I've used one such treatment (with an amusing logo illustrataion - https://i.imgur.com/JAl8vyW.png https://i.imgur.com/JAl8vyW.png) to good effect to discourage squirrels at my feeder, so that they stick to my dedicated squirrel bungee with a log of compressed corn instead.
- cdaringe 2y agoIncredible image. My squirrel neighbors may get a dose this spring
- nkrisc 2y agoInterestingly, that very irritant is now the key to the widespread success of some pepper species by the way of a specific species of mammals.
- tofof 2y agoOh? Which pepper species and carrier mammal are involved here? Edit: DERP duh you mean humans. :D Literally made the comparison without recognizing it, too. /Edit Not challenging you, just curious and not immediately finding the answer myself with a quick search. The capsaicin receptor is TRPV1, which is a critical protein for thermoregulation and detection of being burned. In other words, it's not just a quick and easy evolutionary path to have a mutation break the receptor for capsaicin and now be immune to the taste. Obviously the animals could evolve behavior or even simply learn as juveniles to tolerate or even enjoy the taste (as many humans do). There are some other interesting things that happen with avian carriers, like reductions in fungal infection and attractiveness to other predators (ants). https://www.washington.edu/news/2013/06/21/airborne-gut-action-primes-wild-chili-pepper-seeds/ https://www.washington.edu/news/2013/06/21/airborne-gut-acti...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jumhyn 2y agoI believe it’s a cheeky reference to humans intentionally cultivating hot peppers specifically because of their capsaicin-producing quality. :)
- grimgrin 2y agoRecently Howtown talked about some of the theories: https://youtu.be/dutpBSKj8JY?t=196 https://youtu.be/dutpBSKj8JY?t=196 It looks at a couple non-competing (iirc) theories
- bobmcnamara 2y agoI do declare I thought it was a cheeky reference to those tomato plants that grown down by old railroad tracks. You see a long time ago, someone at a tomato. Could've been a slice in a cold sandwich. Could've been a fresh one, maybe with A little cheese and pepper. But chili just won't do. Neither would spaghetti. Then, before we had such regulations as we do today, they deposited that tomato seed, post digestion, in the train lavatory toilet. Being back then as it was, the tomato seed and associated fertilizer was dropped from the train car to the track ballast below where it germinated. It's the same process where researchers deposit tomatoes on new volcanic islands. You know what they say: when you gotta go, you gotta go.
- 14 2y agoI mentioned in another comment about growing a Carolina Reaper last summer and trying it with my dad and 13 year old son. My dad and I instantly knew how bad the next half hour or so of our life was about to be. My son also found it hot but no more then 5 minutes later comes out of his room (after we all chewed a pepper and spat it out he went to his room with a slurpee) he casually walks out and says dad is it okay for me to have a shower. He didn't have his slurpee and really did not seemed bothered by the experience at all. Me on the other hand was in insanity pain. Could not stop running water over my tongue or suck on ice and suffered for at least a half hour. I just couldn't believe he took it so well. My only thought was he must not be so sensitive or lacks something like the receptors that detect it. After writing all that I did a search about people with low TRPV1 receptors and found an interesting study done on a couple people lacking functional TRPV1 channels. They were insensitive to the application of capsaicin to the mouth and skin. Furthermore they had an elevated heat pain threshold as well as an elevated cold pain threshold. Why I found this interesting is because my same son who barely reacted to this insanely hot pepper I can never get to wear a jacket to school. He does not mind the cold at all. He will if we were up a mountain or something but he always complains the car is too hot when I am cold. Anyways not sure he lacks function TRPV1 receptors but still interesting to think about. Article linked below. https://www.jci.org/articles/view/153558 https://www.jci.org/articles/view/153558
- cjbgkagh 2y agoOne of many in a long list of evolved pesticides
- BurningFrog 2y agoOthers are nicotine, caffeine and cocaine. What else? EDIT: and morphine!
- mofunnyman 2y agoThose are resticides.
- IIAOPSW 2y agoI don't care what you call it, if it ends in "ine" its good enough for me.
- tonymillion 2y agoStrychnine side note: It kills you by making all your muscles tense so strongly that you can't breath any more. The muscles in your face tense in a way that it gives you whats called a "Strychnine Smile".
- bobthepanda 2y agoIt is also somewhat anti microbial, so it became useful for food preservation. See: kimchi
- cnity 2y agoThough you're right, in kimchi the primary preservative is initially the saltiness and then later the low pH caused by lactobacilli producing lactic acids.
- bobthepanda 2y agoI don't dispute that. My understanding is that the introduction of chili allowed a reduction in salt content, which was important in an era where salt was expensive to produce.
- cnity 2y agoI didn't know that, that's really interesting thanks!
- cyberax 2y agoYou can make fermented cabbage without any hot peppers. It's common in Slavic cultures.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dunham 2y agoI'm guessing it was common in Korea before chilis were brought back from the americas.
- bobthepanda 2y agomy understanding of the development was that chili was used to cut the amount of salt, which wasn't cheap to produce
- RobotToaster 2y agoReminds me of the theory that wheat domesticated humans.
- fsckboy 2y agodriving down the road I was inspired to taste some fresh wheat grains in a field: tasted a lot like flour. what is that "thing"? an attractive tasty flour nodule? the energy yolk to the seed's egg?
- meindnoch 2y agoIt's called endosperm. A bunch of starch that nourishes the embryo when the seed germinates.
- nkrisc 2y agoBasically, yes. Though wheat didn’t look like that initially. We’ve cultivated it to become like that over thousands of years. Same for corn (maize). There is no naturally occurring plant that looks like what we’ve turned it into.
- eru 2y agoWild potatoes look pretty close to some domesticated potatoes I had. Also I had lots of wild berries (of various species) in forests, and they look pretty much like the berries you can find in a garden. (Though probably not like the berries you can get in a supermarket?) Wild grass also looks pretty much like some of the domesticated variety. (Well, some varieties do.)
- thayne 2y agoBeing delicious to humans is a pretty good evolutionary advantage. Although, not necessarily good for the longevity of individuals of that species, see, for example, cattle.
- nubinetwork 2y agoSo you're saying that if I wanted to eat a lot of hot peppers, I should just swallow them whole? Asking for a friend of course...
- foobiekr 2y agoI find that it is an effective rat repellent - a neighbor has a rat colony they will not address - but while it was effective for squirrels at first, they seem to have gotten over it, and we now see them eating dropped seeds without any pause at all. I think the first generation never overcame it but now they do eat whatever the birds spill.
- kylehotchkiss 2y ago[flagged]
- pfooti 2y agoPoisoned rats are eaten by owls and raptors, who then die or move out of the neighborhood.
- lobsterthief 2y agoThere’s a poison called Rat-X that only affects rodents. It will affect squirrels though.
- foobiekr 2y agoRat-X isn't a poison and mostly doesn't work.
- 1024core 2y agoWhy poison an animal just trying to survive?
- mauvehaus 2y agoMice are cute as hell, but we have traps on the kitchen counters (they come in in the fall) because they shit everywhere they walk. It's not as clear-cut as you make it out to be.
- kylehotchkiss 2y ago
- adamrezich 2y agoNot a good deer repellant, though—at least for the mule deer around here. My mom once sprayed some plants she had to prevent the local pests from eating them, but instead, they just ate the plants anyway, and then proceeded to shit all over the yard everywhere.
- intrasight 2y ago>shit all over the yard everywhere They do that in any case
- adamrezich 2y agoIt was particularly messy in this case.
- gkoberger 2y agoIf the above comment was interesting to you... you might really like the YouTube video "The truth about Hot Ones sauces"! It goes into this theory, along with how spice levels are measured. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dutpBSKj8JY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dutpBSKj8JY
- jasonpeacock 2y agoYep, you can get spicy bird food which completely eliminates squirrel, rat, rabbit, racoon, and other issues with your bird feeders: https://order.wbu.com/shop/bird-food/hot-pepper https://order.wbu.com/shop/bird-food/hot-pepper It's a game changer, it's the only bird food that I use now.
- natebc 2y agoYour squirrels are wimps. I use WBU's no-mess spicy version ... Squirrels have little problem with it. Every now and then one will bounce around a bit after eating it but they still come every day.
- GZGavinZhao 2y agoSquirrels in Sichuan: yesssir more spicy bird food plz!!! XD
- throwawaymaths 2y ago> capsaicin they have no heat receptors?? capsaicin literally triggers the ion channel for thermosensing.
- burnished 2y agoProbably a different channel that isn't triggered by capsaicin
- sitharus 2y agoCapsaicin binds to TRPV1 receptors, which are mammal-specific. Other animals have different proteins in this role and birds in particular are not sensitive to it. Also TVRP1 is only triggered by temperatures over 43°C, lower temperatures are sensed by other proteins. Capsaicin isn’t just effective on mammals, it also has an effect on some fungi and insects, though mostly through metabolic disruption.
- throwawaymaths 2y agoThanks!!
- widforss 2y agoHave you seen birds swimming in the winter? Doubt they care much about temperature. /s
- sargun 2y agoWhere does the capsaicin go? How much ends up in the bird's blood, egg, and muscles?
- jbotz 2y agoIt gets metabolised. No you can't make Chili Chicken by feeding chilies to the chicken before killing and cooking it.
- afpx 2y agoThe fox population has grown a lot near me. I often have a couple foxes sleeping in my back yard at night. I used to have a major squirrel problem, but The foxes ate them all.
- conductr 2y agoWe have coyotes around in DFW. Not too many in the urban core areas (mid-century suburbs), so the squirrel are rampant. Out in the exurbs (more recent suburbs), the coyote population is high enough I practically never see a squirrel. Granted - the older areas have more mature oak, pecan, and other nut producing trees too. But there should be some squirrels out in the exurbs and I never see any. I've spent some significant time out there too. They have more rabbits than I see intown, which I imagine is the coyotes main food source.
- wodenokoto 2y agoCan I get bird seeds that the birds hate and then they stay away from my balcony because of bad associations?
- jader201 2y agoI need a good bird repellent for windows. We eventually took our feeder down after birds kept crashing into our windows near the feeder. I can only assume they were trying to get to "the other bird feeder". It was great while it lasted, though. We -- and our cats -- loved watching them crowd around the feeder to enjoy some seed.
- olyjohn 2y agoAt my house, they crash into the windows because they are so damn aggressive. They see themselves in the reflection and attack the other bird. They shat all over my cars this year because they kept seeing themselves in the side view mirrors. Then shat all over the back of my car because it has a chrome bumper. I have watched robins sit on the side of my car for an hour just attacking the sideview mirror over and over. They regularly crash into the one window in my house that has a tree next to it, because they land in the branches, then decide to attack the other bird in the reflection. They will sit there for hours doing this until they finally hit the window hard enough to scare themselves off.
- mrspuratic 2y agoI've used the UV reflective "anti-collision" stickers with reasonable success. You can get discrete (to humans) ones that look like etched bird silhouettes. Just make sure to put them on the outside.
- jcoby 2y agoSquirrels kept trying to get my squirrel proof bird feeder and then they’d get mad and chew on the furniture when they couldn’t get the seed. And they’d poop in the rails because they’re squirrels. I smeared some Last Dab on the bird feeder support and cayenne on the furniture and railings and haven’t seen a squirrel since.
- unnamed76ri 2y agoHow exactly did plants find this chemical irritant?
- cyberpunk 2y agoSurvival of the fittest. One plant was a tiny tiny bit more spicy by freak chance and it did a little better than the others, over many years.. Probably.
- bun_at_work 2y agoUsing a random walk algorithm through genetic space over millions (or billions) of years.
- rtkwe 2y agoI friend of mine got that and spilled it in their house and I had me coughing the whole time I was over there till they were able to air it out so be careful if you're handling it indoors some people get got by it worse than others.
- RachelF 2y ago>birds have no receptors for capsaicin, while mammals do. True. I suspect it is only placental mammals. Brush-tailed possums (a marsupial mammal) do not seem repelled by it at all. I've had my birds eyes and Carolina Reaper chilly plants and fruit eaten by them.
- msrenee 2y agoI'm seeing quite a few websites suggesting cayenne pepper to keep Virginia Opossums out of your plants. I've never tried it myself, but that's a marsupial that appears to not like spicy food. The only species coming up in these increasingly useless search engine results as liking spicy food is Chinese tree shrews. I'm getting so frustrated anymore trying to use google, bing, brave search, startpage, etc for finding anything except reddit or quora answers and business pages. If you find any more info on marsupials and peppers, I'd love to see it. It's a super interesting question.
- timewizard 2y ago> Mammals, on the other hand, have teeth Chewing is also an imperfect process. Mammals, and I can tell you this personally and with some disdain, sometimes pass seeds as well. > found a chemical irritant that repels the mammals Deer, and I can tell you this personally and with some disdain, seem to love peppers as much as we do. They're also harder to keep out of your yard.
- astrange 2y ago> Chewing is also an imperfect process. Mammals, and I can tell you this personally and with some disdain, sometimes pass seeds as well. That's how you get poop coffee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_luwak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_luwak
- Terr_ 2y ago> They also illustrate the evolution of this One of my pet-peeves: Certain science fiction writers (often amateur) posit that humans will greatly impress aliens with our willingness--no, zeal--to consume capsaicin, a terrible death substance all sentient races flee from etc. This is nonsense since it's basically an narrowly targeted false-alarm trick between relatively closely related creatures. It's not acidic, caustic, corrosive, etc. > this protein Just to head off the ambiguous phrasing here: Capsaicin itself is not a protein, but a much simpler kind of chemical. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylpropanoid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylpropanoid
- scubbo 2y ago> I've used one such treatment What brand? I've been wanting to figure out a squirrel deterrant for my bird feeder, and personal recommendations are always greatly preferred to ads.
- jongjong 2y agoIt's wild to think that plants are engaged in this constant struggle to produce seeds that have an outer shell that is just strong enough not to be consistently dissolved in a bird's stomach but not so strong that they won't ever dissolve. One one hand, some seeds must survive passing through the bird's digestive system intact to later grow into a plant, on the other hand, some seeds must be digested in order to keep the birds interested in consuming that seed... Alternatively, a bird species interested in eating indigestible seeds may become extinct due to malnutrition.
- billfruit 2y agoThen what do we do if we want to repel birds, especially pigeons.
- lloeki 2y agoThere's some products that you spray and it's supposed to give them a nasty headache and then they learn and stop coming. It gave me headaches as well though. Contrary to what the internets want you to believe, there are bird murder machines called "cats", which seems to skip most of the "learning" and the "headache" part.
- dweekly 2y agoWait, I want to see video of the squirrel bungee now...
- Eduard 2y agomaybe they mean the "Squngee Squirrel Feeder" https://youtu.be/Ao6T-atMSYU https://youtu.be/Ao6T-atMSYU
- 14 2y agoI can not remember the tree or plant and the following is only my best recollection and may be slightly incorrect, couldn't reach my dad to ask, he told me about a plant and I forget if it had basically been eradicated possibly to human harvesting and was unique to a region if I remember correctly and it was believed to be gone. But then some seeds were found and they tried to germinate them but continually failed. As I remember what he told me was that someone going through some ancient writings or paintings and it showed the tree and birds eating from it. He then said the person had the idea to feed the seed to a bird and see if it did anything. Apparently it was successful and he was able to grow this lost plant/tree what ever it was. The whole story sounds far fetched but my dad is not a bullshitter he would have seen it on some history channel or similar. Looking up birds eating seeds and germination explains that the digestive enzymes in a birds stomach can help break down the hard outer coating on some seeds helping germination. I will ask him when I can and report back if I can verify anything he said. As for spicy peppers funny to me story. I grew a Carolina Reaper plant last summer and the plant did well and I got something like 200 peppers from it. Of course I had to know what it felt like so me my dad and my 13 year old son tried them. We all threw a big chunk in our mouths chewed for about 5 seconds and spat it out. The pain was basically instant. It was at about 2 seconds I knew this was not going to be good. It was insanely hot which lasted about half an hour, the entire time me running my mouth under the tap or putting ice on it, trying crackers and milk, even tried to wash my tongue. Some how my son after about 5 minutes very calmly says can I go have a shower. He was hardly bothered by the pepper. Funny thing happened couple weeks later. I was telling my friend how insane these peppers were. He then asks if he can have some as he has a bear knocking over his garbage every night and wants to leave some for the bear to eat and hopefully encourage it to stop. So he makes a burrito and fills it with 5 or 6 nice sized reapers and leaves it out before bed. Well middle of the night his phone dings and his outside camera detected motion. Fires up the video and what does he see, not the bear but some stray dog walking the neighborhood run up and down the thing in a couple bites. Oh man I hope that dog didn't suffer too bad when it came out the other end.
- buildsjets 2y agoIt might be on the list of plants at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_taxon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_taxon ? Of that list, we have a Metasequoia / Dawn Redwood tree in our yard, it's great fast-growing shade tree with deciduous leaves that are so small you don't need to rake them. Thought to be extinct, re-discovered in China in 1944, availability in nurseries is pretty good.
- znort_ 2y agoMammals that eat seeds grind them apart orally before even swallowing. As a result, any seeds ingested by mammals are very likely to be completely destroyed. not really true, mastication isn't practiced to perfection in the wild, which is why you might often see seeds right on the poop. a portion of them get distributed intact.
- javea71 2y agoOk but how did the plant know that is wasn't being successfully spread by mammals..
- puetzk 2y agoEvolution doesn't plan ahead. Various plants got various random mutations that produce various random chemicals. The ones that were tasty to birds but disgusting to mammals for their seeds spread all over and ended up pretty widespread, so they survived and became common. The ones that were repulsive to birds but tasty to mammals got eaten by something that grinds up their seed, and so they are extinct. Or, (after humans invented agriculture), possibly got domesticated and became extremely numerous since we'd intentionally save some seeds to plant despite eating the rest. But there was no awareness and no plan, just chance and history and whatever happened to work.