Calcium phosphate is the main component of our teeth and bones . And now researchers have found this tough mineral substance in the twinge hair of South American plant from the rock nettle fellowship . The findings were published inScientific Reportslast week .
Plants from the Loasaceae family are often well - equipped with a obtuse covering of barbed and extremely effective stinging hairs called trichomes . When an beast attempt to eat one , the tips of the bite hairs break off and toxins are injected into its tongue . These rock nettles are distantly related to the more famous prick nettles , which fort their needle - shape hairs with the glass - like mineral silica . Lots of plant surfaces swear on silica for defense against flora - eaters .
This summons of biomineralization provides both plants and animal with bouncy structures . And while calcium phosphate social organisation are well - know in the animate being realm , it has n’t been report in high plants , yet . Researchers have previously noticed the hypodermic syringe - corresponding staying power of tilt nettle hairs , but their chemical composition remained unsung . So , a team go by Maximilian Weigend of Universität Bonn cultivate a miscellanea of biomineralized plants from the Loasaceae family at the Botanische Gärten der Universität Bonn and studied their stinging hairs .
Turns out , while stinging nettles have silica , rock candy nettle have calcium phosphate at the tips of their hairs . " The mineral composition of the stinging hairs is very similar to that of human or animal teeth , " Weigend explained in astatement . Being densely beset with bantam calcium orthophosphate watch glass renders the stinging hairs " remarkably unbending . " Some of them also have silica in the hooks .
It ’s undecipherable why rock-and-roll nettle evolved this particular type of biomineralization – with the calcium orthophosphate that reach up the tooth of those hop to eat them . " At present we can only speculate about the adaptive reasons for this . But it seems that rock nettles pay back in kind,“Weigend added . " A tooth for a tooth . "
double in the text edition : Blumenbachia insignis . Note the long , mineralized bite trichomes . M. Weigend / Uni Bonn
