Tomato plants are covered in tiny anti-pest booby traps

The hairs on tomato plants are actually tiny pest traps

Jalaal Research Group/University of Amsterdam

For hungry insects, walking along a tomato stalk in search of a green meal can be like navigating a minefield.

Jared Popowski at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands was trying to measure the mechanical properties of tomato plants in the lab. Then a tiny hair on one of the stalks started oozing liquid – and it happened so quickly that his camera barely caught it. He had inadvertently triggered one of the plant’s pest-protection mechanisms.

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