This African rat has figured out how to use a plant's poison to defend itself!

This African rat has figured out how to use a plant's poison to defend itself!

When you're a member of the animal kingdom and you're lower down on the food chain and you lack any truly harmful defenses, just what do you do? Well if you're the African Crested rat finds it's own poison.

This rat is larger than normal rats and looks somewhat like a porcupine due to it's stuck up mohawk.

For years, scientists knew the rat was poisonous but didn't know where the poison came from. That's because the rats don't make the poison themselves.

Instead, they chew the poison out of the Poison Arrow plant and then lick the poison into the hollow hairs that run along their back.

Whenever the rat feels threatened, it spikes up it's poisoned mohawk and dares the predator to take a bite. If they do, they risk serious illness or even death.

For thousands of years, African tribesmen have used the very same poison for hunting. They put it in their arrows, which allows them to kill large prey like elephants.

(Source)

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