Tobacco hornworm caterpillars ingest nicotine to ward off their major predator, the website Examiner.com said in a story citing work by a German research institute.

Caterpillars were placed on tobacco plants genetically altered to inhibit their ingestion of nicotine. A control group was placed on normal plants. Those feeding on the altered plants were four times more likely to be eaten by the wolf spider, the US-based website reported.
Findings of the work done at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, are published in the current edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.