Word: dichlorophenol
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...find out why the liquid is so effective, the scientists, led by Biologist Thomas Eisner, extracted it from several hundred grasshoppers and analyzed its contents. In addition to quinones, phenols, terpenes and other chemicals that are often used in insect warfare, they found an unexpected ingredient: 2,5-dichlorophenol, a derivative of a man-made herbicide...
Further experimentation, they report in Science, showed that although the grasshoppers eat herbicide-sprayed plants with no ill effects, ants will not touch food that has been doused with 2,5-dichlorophenol. Thus, the scientists concluded, the herbicide had become an effective component of the grasshopper's defense-the first known instance of an insect's using as a weapon a chemical "unleashed upon the ecosystem...
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