'Anonymous' hackers target US security think tank

The loose-knit hacking movement "Anonymous" claimed Sunday to have stolen thousands of credit card numbers and other personal information belonging to clients of U.S.-based security think tank Stratfor. One hacker said the goal was to pilfer funds from individuals' accounts to give away as Christmas donations, and some victims confirmed unauthorized transactions linked to their credit cards.

Anonymous boasted of stealing Stratfor's confidential client list, which includes entities ranging from Apple to the U.S. Air Force to the Miami Police Department, and mining it for more than 4,000 credit card numbers, passwords and home addresses.

"Not so private and secret anymore?" the group taunted in a message on Twitter, promising that the attack on Stratfor was just the beginning of a Christmas-inspired assault on a long list of targets.

Anonymous said the client list it posted was a small slice of the 200 gigabytes worth of plunder it stole from Stratfor and promised more leaks. It said it was able to get the credit details in part because Stratfor didn't bother encrypting them ? an easy-to-avoid blunder which, if true, would be a major embarrassment for any security-related company.

Austin, Texas-based Stratfor provides political, economic and military analysis to help clients reduce risk, according to a description on its YouTube page. It charges subscribers for its reports and analysis, delivered through the web, emails and videos.

Lt. Col. John Dorrian, public affairs officer for the Air Force, said that "for obvious reasons" the Air Force doesn't discuss specific vulnerabilities, threats or responses to them.

"The Air Force will continue to monitor the situation and, as always, take appropriate action as necessary to protect Air Force networks and information," he said in an email.

Miami Police Department spokesman Sgt. Freddie Cruz Jr. said that he could not confirm that the agency was a client of Stratfor, and he said he had not received any information about a security breach involving the police department.

It soon became clear that proprietary information about the companies and government agencies that subscribe to Stratfor's newsletters did not appear to be at any significant risk, and that the main threat was posed to individual employees.

Hours after publishing what it claimed was Stratfor's client list, Anonymous tweeted a link to encrypted files online with the names, addresses and account details.

"Not as many as you expected? Worry not, fellow pirates and robin hoods. These are just the "A"s," read a message posted online that encouraged readers to download a file of the hacked information.

It also linked to images online that it suggested were receipts for charitable donations made by the group manipulating the credit card data it stole.

"Thank you! Defense Intelligence Agency," read the text above one image that appeared to show a transaction summary indicating that an agency employee's information was used to donate $250 to a non-profit.

One receipt ? to the American Red Cross ? had Allen Barr's name on it.

Barr, of Austin, Texas, recently retired from the Texas Department of Banking and said he discovered last Friday that a total of $700 had been spent from his account. Barr, who has spent more than a decade dealing with cybercrime at banks, said five transactions were made in total.

"It was all charities, the Red Cross, CARE, Save the Children. So when the credit card company called my wife she wasn't sure whether I was just donating," said Barr, who wasn't aware until a reporter with the AP called that his information had been compromised when Stratfor's computers were hacked.

"It made me feel terrible. It made my wife feel terrible. We had to close the account."

Stratfor said in an email to members that it had suspended its servers and email after learning that its website had been hacked.

"We have reason to believe that the names of our corporate subscribers have been posted on other web sites," said the email, passed on to The Associated Press by subscribers. "We are diligently investigating the extent to which subscriber information may have been obtained."

The email, signed by Stratfor Chief Executive George Friedman, said the company is "working closely with law enforcement to identify who is behind the breach."

"Stratfor's relationship with its members and, in particular, the confidentiality of their subscriber information, are very important to Stratfor and me," Friedman wrote.

Repeated calls to Stratfor went unanswered Sunday and an answering machine thanked callers for contacting the "No. 1 source for global intelligence." Stratfor's website was down, with a banner saying "site is currently undergoing maintenance."

Wishing everyone a "Merry LulzXMas" ? a nod to its spinoff hacking group Lulz Security ? Anonymous also posted a link on Twitter to a site containing the email, phone number and credit number of a U.S. Homeland Security employee.

The employee, Cody Sultenfuss, said he had no warning before his details were posted.

"They took money I did not have," he told the AP in a series of emails, which did not specify the amount taken. "I think 'Why me?' I am not rich."

One member of the hacking group, who uses the handle AnonymousAbu on Twitter, claimed that more than 90,000 credit cards from law enforcement, the intelligence community and journalists ? "corporate/exec accounts of people like Fox" news ? had been hacked and used to "steal a million dollars" and make donations.

It was impossible to verify where credit card details were used. Fox News was not on the excerpted list of Stratfor members posted online, but other media organizations including MSNBC and Al-Jazeera English appeared in the file.

Anonymous warned it has "enough targets lined up to extend the fun fun fun of LulzXmas through the entire next week."

The group has previously claimed responsibility for attacks on companies such as Visa, MasterCard and PayPal, as well as others in the music industry and the Church of Scientology.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45787767/ns/technology_and_science-security/

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Tomenosuke x kaNO Japan Edition Dragon King

? Kozik x Kidrobot ? Lustre Gloss Labbits (01.12) | Main | Paul Kaiju x Medicom ? Exclusive Medicom Release ?

Dec 24, 2011

Tomenosuke x kaNO ? Japan Edition Dragon King

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kaNO has really hit his stride with the new Dragon King figure (Kuso Vinyl).? Rather than simply looking for killer color combinations, he?s used each edition to convey a different slice of the martial artist?s legend.? For Tomenosuke?s exclusive Japan edition, he continues the roll by smartly paying homage to Kato, the Green Hornet?s butt-kicking Japanese sidekick valet.?? Limited to just 75 pieces, the masked Dragon King will soon be available exclusively from Tomenosuke for $70 (+ s/h). Keep a look out.

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Men look at the wreckage of a car following a bomb blast at St Theresa Catholic Church

Men look at the wreckage of a car following a bomb blast at St Theresa Catholic Church

Men look at the wreckage of a car following a bomb blast at St Theresa Catholic Church outside the Nigerian capital Abuja. The White House on Sunday condemned the deadly Christmas Day bombings in Nigeria as "senseless violence" as it offered condolences to the Nigerian people over attacks blamed on an Islamist sect.

Source: AFP - Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium

Source: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=iafpCNG.0298b6868ea65fcc526217c01cda8091.51p0&show_article=1

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SC voter ID law rejected by Justice Department (AP)

COLUMBIA, S.C. ? The Justice Department on Friday rejected South Carolina's law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls, saying it makes it harder for minorities to cast ballots. It was the first voter ID law to be refused by the federal agency in nearly 20 years.

The Obama administration said South Carolina's law didn't meet the burden under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which outlawed discriminatory practices preventing blacks from voting. Tens of thousands of minorities in South Carolina might not be able to cast ballots under South Carolina's law because they don't have the right photo ID, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez said.

South Carolina's law was passed by a Republican-controlled Legislature and signed by GOP Gov. Nikki Haley. The state's attorney general vowed to fight the federal agency in court.

"Nothing in this act stops people from voting," said Attorney General Alan Wilson, who is also a Republican.

South Carolina's new voter ID law requires voters to show poll workers a state-issued driver's license or several other alternative forms of photo identification.

"The U.S. Department of Justice today blocked implementation of a new law that would require South Carolina voters to present a photo ID in order to vote," the state Election Commission said in a statement late Friday. "Therefore, ID requirements for voting will not change at this time.'

South Carolina is among five states that passed laws this year requiring some form of ID at the polls, while such laws were already on the books in Indiana and Georgia, whose law received approval from President George W. Bush's Justice Department. Indiana's law, passed in 2005, was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008.

Those new laws also allow voters without the required photo ID to cast provisional ballots, but the voters must return to a specific location with that ID within a certain time limit for their ballots to count.

Most of the laws have been promoted and approved by Republicans, who argue they are needed to avert voter fraud. Democrats say the measures are actually aimed at reducing minority votes for their candidates.

The Justice Department must approve changes to South Carolina's election laws under the federal Voting Rights Act because of the state's past failure to protect the voting rights of blacks. It is one of nine states that require the agency's approval.

The last time the Justice Department rejected a voter ID law was in 1994 when Louisiana passed a measure requiring a picture ID. After changes were made, it was approved by the agency.

Justice officials are reviewing Texas' new law. Kansas, Tennessee and Wisconsin also passed laws this year, but they are not under the agency's review.

South Carolina's law also required the state to determine how many voters lack state-issued IDs so that the Election Commission can work to make sure they know of law changes. The Department of Motor Vehicles will issue free state photo identification cards to those voters.

"Minority registered voters were nearly 20 percent more likely to lack DMV-issued ID than white registered voters, and thus to be effectively disenfranchised," Perez wrote, noting that the numbers could be even higher since the data submitted by the state doesn't include inactive voters.

The number of active and inactive voters that should be used to determine how many people would be affected by the law has been in dispute. Department of Motor Vehicles executive director Kevin Shwedo said the state Election Commission knew it was using inaccurate data when it released reports showing nearly 240,000 active and inactive voters lacked driver's licenses or ID cards.

Shwedo sent the state's attorney general an analysis showing that 207,000 of those voters live in other states, allowed their ID cards to expire, probably have licenses with names that didn't match voter records or were dead. He said the commission created "artificially high numbers to excite the masses."

Earlier in the week, commission officials said the agency will eliminate nearly 60,000 deceased people and individuals whose names didn't match DMV records.

Haley said the decision was more proof President Barack Obama is fighting conservative ideas like voter ID laws or immigration reform.

"The president and his bullish administration are fighting us every step of the way. It is outrageous, and we plan to look at every possible option to get this terrible, clearly political decision overturned so we can protect the integrity of our electoral process and our 10th amendment rights," Haley said in a statement.

South Carolina ACLU executive director Victoria Middleton applauded the Justice Department's decision, saying the "misguided" law represented "a dramatic setback to voting rights in our state and we are pleased to see it stopped in its tracks."

The decision also was welcomed by civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, who planned to talk about how voter ID laws are an effort by conservatives to keep blacks from voting in his hometown of Greenville, S.C., next week. He said the laws are like modern day poll taxes, targeting elderly people that can't afford to get IDs and students.

"We're fighting wars for democracy overseas and we're fighting democracy at home," Jackson said. "What a contradiction."

___

Associated Press writers Jim Davenport and Jeffrey Collins contributed to this report.

___

Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111224/ap_on_re_us/us_voter_id_south_carolina

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Arizona coma patient now speaking, walking

Dr. Robert Spetzler, right, talks about Sam Schmid's brain injury during a news conference at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix on Friday, Dec. 23, 2011. Schmid, an Arizona college student believed to be brain dead and poised to be an organ donor, miraculously recovered just hours before doctors were considering taking him off life support. Schmid was critically wounded in an Oct. 19 five-car accident in Tucson. (AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, Deirder Hamil) MARICOPA COUNTY OUT; MAGS OUT; NO SALES

Dr. Robert Spetzler, right, talks about Sam Schmid's brain injury during a news conference at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix on Friday, Dec. 23, 2011. Schmid, an Arizona college student believed to be brain dead and poised to be an organ donor, miraculously recovered just hours before doctors were considering taking him off life support. Schmid was critically wounded in an Oct. 19 five-car accident in Tucson. (AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, Deirder Hamil) MARICOPA COUNTY OUT; MAGS OUT; NO SALES

Sam Schmid listens as Dr. Robert Spetzler, unseen, talks about Schmid's brain injury during a news conference at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix on Friday, Dec. 23, 2011. Schmid, an Arizona college student believed to be brain dead and poised to be an organ donor, miraculously recovered just hours before doctors were considering taking him off life support. Schmid was critically wounded in an Oct. 19 five-car accident in Tucson. (AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, Deirder Hamil) MARICOPA COUNTY OUT; MAGS OUT; NO SALES

Dr. Robert Spetzler, right, talks about Sam Schmid's brain injury during a news conference at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix on Friday, Dec. 23, 2011. Schmid, an Arizona college student believed to be brain dead and poised to be an organ donor, miraculously recovered on Oct. 24 just hours before doctors were considering taking him off life support. Schmid was critically wounded in an Oct. 19 five-car accident in Tucson. (AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, Deirder Hamil) MARICOPA COUNTY OUT; MAGS OUT; NO SALES

PHOENIX (AP) ? It will be a special Christmas for the family of a 21-year-old University of Arizona student who was nearly taken off life support before awaking from a coma.

Sam Schmid was walking and speaking Friday at a Phoenix hospital. Dressed in a T-shirt, shorts and sneakers, he was able to use a walker and talk in brief sentences.

"Right now, I'm feeling all right ... except for the rehabilitation, I'm feeling pretty good," Schmid said.

Doctors at Barrow Neurological Institute say Schmid has a long recovery ahead of him to regain full speech, balance and memory abilities.

Schmid was involved in an Oct. 19 car crash in Tucson that left him with a brain aneurysm, among other life-threatening injuries. Because of the complexity of his brain injury, Schmid was flown to Phoenix.

He underwent surgery performed by Dr. Robert Spetzler. With no responsive signs, staff discussed taking Schmid off life support.

"They never approached me to say would I donate his organs," said Susan Regan, Schmid's mother. "The people that were surrounding us were just asking about Sam, his quality of life, what would Sam want if we had to come to a difficult decision."

Spetzler said Schmid was never officially classified as a potential organ donor. And after an MRI scan showed he wasn't at a point of no hope of survival, Spetzler recommended keeping him alive for one more week.

Then on Oct. 24, Schmid shocked doctors by following commands to hold up two fingers.

"It may not seem like a lot to you," Spetzler said. "It's an incredible loop to show brain ability. That was like fireworks going off."

Since then, Schmid has been spending his days in physical rehabilitation. Dr. Christina Kwasnica, who is overseeing Schmid's rehabilitation, said he has gone from practicing sitting in a chair to doing rehab three hours a day. She described his recovery so far as amazing but hesitated to make any predictions of what "normal" would be for him.

"It's so early in Sam's injury. We have no idea where the ceiling is," Kwasnica said.

While he will be able to spend Christmas day with family in Phoenix, Schmid will not officially be released until next week. His brother, John, based in Tucson, will relocate to Phoenix so Schmid can continue rehabilitation on an out-patient basis.

Schmid, who is a business major and was coaching basketball at a University of Arizona recreation center, is holding onto the belief that he can get back to what his life was like before the accident.

"I see myself leaving the house, going to school, work, basic things like that," Schmid said. "I just want my life to be what it used to be."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2011-12-23-Coma%20Patient%20Wakes/id-b8c15b6dd5654989991c8f05b0a036eb

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Syria Says 2,000 Troops Killed Since March

A Syrian state news agency says more than 2,000 members of its security forces have been killed in the nine months since Arab Spring-style antigovernment protests broke out.

SANA said the figures were contained in a letter sent by the Syrian government to the UN Security Council and Human Rights Council.

The United Nations says Syrian security forces have killed more than 5,000 people, mostly civilians, in the same period.

Activists said some 29 people were killed in the flashpoint central city of Homs and the northern city of Idlib on December 22.

A 12-member advance team of Arab League observers has meanwhile arrived in Syria.

Dozens of Arab observers are due to arrive in Syria later this month to monitor President Bashar al-Assad's compliance with a plan that calls for troops to leave residential areas, talks to begin with the opposition, and the release of political prisoners.

compiled from agency reports

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/syria_agency_says_2000_security_forces_killed_since_march/24430753.html

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No Xmas at home for detained ex-Philippine leader (AP)

MANILA, Philippines ? A Philippine court rejected on Wednesday requests by arrested ex-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to celebrate Christmas at home and use her cellphone and computer in detention, underscoring recent stunning reversals for a woman once considered among the world's most powerful.

Judge Jesus Mupas of the Pasay Regional Trial Court cited security reasons for denying Arroyo's request to leave a military hospital where she is detained on electoral fraud charges. She wanted to celebrate Christmas and New Year at her upscale home in the capital.

But she obtained small concessions. Mupas allowed her family, children and grandchildren to celebrate the holidays with her in her heavily guarded hospital suite from Dec. 24 to 26 and Dec. 31 to Jan. 2. She will also be allowed to watch TV, listen to the radio, attend Mass and get an hour of sunshine each day.

"The court is not inclined to grant (Arroyo) a Christmas furlough," Mupas said in his order. He said he was allowing her family to visit because "the court is fully aware of the fact that everybody wants to be with his loved ones during Christmas."

Court sheriff Rodelio Buenviaje said Arroyo was upset when he relayed the order to her.

"We are saddened but we will follow," Arroyo lawyer Ferdinand Topacio told reporters. "I was just hoping that the judge will see through his heart that this is a season for unity and forgiveness."

Arroyo's Nov. 18 arrest curtailed her rights even though she remains a member of the House of Representatives, Mupas said.

Mupas had ordered Arroyo's arrest on Nov. 18 in her hospital room, where she had sought treatment for a bone ailment, on suspicion of ordering the rigging of 2007 senatorial elections to favor her candidates. She has denied any wrongdoing and has hired a battery of lawyers.

Last month, the Supreme Court lifted a travel ban on her, and she attempted to leave the country with her husband. President Benigno Aquino III's justice secretary, however, defied the Supreme Court order and directed airport authorities to stop her from leaving, fearing she might try to escape from prosecution.

Aquino, who won election on a promise to uproot corruption, blames Arroyo for a decade of graft and corruption scandals that eroded public trust in government and held back foreign investment.

Arroyo, however, accused her successor of resorting to "demagoguery to completely destroy my reputation."

Aquino has accused Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, a former Arroyo chief of staff whom she appointed shortly before her term ended last year, of obstructing Arroyo's prosecution. Although Corona has denied favoring Arroyo in his rulings, Aquino's allies in the House of Representatives impeached the chief justice last week.

Arroyo, a 64-year-old former economics professor and daughter of an ex-president, survived four opposition impeachment bids and four attempted coups during her nine stormy years in power.

Arroyo once landed near the top of a Forbes magazine list of the 100 most powerful women in the world.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111221/ap_on_re_as/as_philippines_arroyo

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Deborah Weinstein: House Republicans: Gambling With Millions of Lives

When the House Republicans blew up a bipartisan Senate plan to continue unemployment insurance and the payroll tax cut for two months, they made it clear that they were willing to use the 99 percent as bargaining chips in their fight to protect the top 1 percent.

I say "bargaining chips" advisedly. Rep. Thomas J. Rooney (R-FL) said of the stand-off, "It's high stakes poker," as quoted in the Washington Post. They are gambling with millions of lives.

Most of the press coverage has been about the 160 million people who will start paying higher payroll taxes in January if the House intransigence is unyielding. A lot less attention has been focused on the long-term unemployed. After they exhaust 26 weeks of state unemployment insurance, people still out of work depend on additional weeks of help from the federal unemployment insurance program. More than 40 percent of the unemployed have been out of work for more than 6 months, so the federal program is desperately needed. But it will expire in January because of the House's gamble. According to the National Employment Law Project, nearly 1.8 million people will have to go without unemployment benefits in January alone, with millions more denied help in succeeding months.

Economists have consistently ranked unemployment insurance expenditures as among the most successful means of boosting the economy. Of course, the $300 a week in an average unemployment check goes straight back out into the community, spent on food, rent, clothes for their children, and other basic needs. That's not much money, but it can mean the difference between paying the rent and being evicted. The consequences for families will be stark. After all, these lifeline benefits kept 3.2 million people out of poverty in 2010, 1 million of whom were children. Most of the families who lose their unemployment checks will not find jobs; there are still four job-seekers for every available job. They will fall into poverty if they aren't already poor.

It is stunning that the House Republicans don't care enough about the jobless to protect them while negotiations go on for a year-long solution. But that's the point: They are doing this because they don't want to protect them. The House-passed bill that provided a year's extension of the payroll tax cut plus another year of federal unemployment compensation placed many restrictions on unemployment insurance. The bill slashed the maximum number of weeks available by 50 (and states with the highest unemployment rates were hit the hardest). It also threw up mean-spirited barriers meant to slam the door on unemployment insurance applicants. That would be costly and unnecessary: States already restrict eligibility for workers who lose their jobs because of drug use.

In another cynical barrier, under the House bill unemployment insurance recipients would either have to have finished high school or be enrolled in a high school equivalency program. There is a waiting list of 160,000 people nationwide to get into such programs, and House Republicans have not been noted for expanding such educational opportunities.

The Senate vigorously rejected these punishments for being out of work, passing a two-month extension with no policy changes with overwhelming support from both parties. House leaders were not confident that they could prevail in slashing unemployment insurance in a calm negotiation with the Senate. But the House leaders know that in a crisis environment, with the clock ticking on every long-term unemployed person's weekly check, they might wrest more concessions from the Senate.

That's not all the House wants. Their bill paid for the payroll tax cut, federal unemployment benefits, and other extensions by cutting spending needed for the new health reform law, multi-year freezes on federal worker pay, and taking the Child Tax Credit away from poor children in immigrant families, even though the vast majority of those children are U.S. citizens. Above all, the House Republicans are intent on paying for the payroll tax cut and other provisions with spending or benefit cuts -- certainly not by raising taxes on the top 1 percent.

It is a revealing moment for them. All the talk about never wanting to raise taxes and never needing to pay for tax cuts? That was vigorously asserted when it came to upper-income tax cuts. Speaker Boehner dismissed the attempt a year ago to end the tax cuts for the highest-earning Americans as "chicken crap."

The Speaker and his caucus placed the country on the brink of default in order to preserve the high-income tax cuts. But there is no similar defense of the decidedly middle class payroll tax cut. It's a poker chip now.

Both the Senate two-month bill and the House's year-long legislation extended a number of other low-income programs that are due to expire in December. These include income and child care assistance for the poorest families, Transitional Medicaid for families moving from welfare to work, and subsidies to help low-income seniors afford health insurance. It is shameful to leave these programs in limbo too, all in a reckless attempt to ratchet up the pressure to shrink federal programs.

?

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-weinstein/payroll-tax-cut-republicans_b_1162933.html

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Caterpillars mimic one another for survival

ScienceDaily (Dec. 16, 2011) ? In the world of insects, high risk of attack has led to the development of camouflage as a means for survival, especially in the larval stage. One caterpillar may look like a stick, while another disguises itself as bird droppings. Though crypsis may have its advantages, University of Florida researchers uncovered some of the most extensive evidence of caterpillars using another strategy previously best-known in adult butterflies: mimicry.

Insects use camouflage to protect themselves by looking like inanimate or inedible objects, while mimicry involves one species evolving similar warning color patterns to another.

The study in the current issue of The Annals of the Entomological Society of America helps scientists better understand how organisms depend upon one another, an important factor in predicting how disturbance of natural habitats may lead to species extinctions and loss of biodiversity.

"Mimicry in general is one of the best and earliest-studied examples of natural selection, and it can help us learn where evolutionary adaptations come from," said UF lepidopterist Keith Willmott, lead author of the study and an associate curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus.

Bright warning coloration has evolved in many insects with physical or chemical defenses and further research into how insects metabolize plant toxins for their own benefit has potential use in the medical field.

"It's very interesting how caterpillars can detoxify a plant's poisonous chemicals and resynthesize them for their own chemical defense or for pheromones," said Florida Museum collection coordinator and study co-author Andrei Sourakov. "We can look at the caterpillars' metabolic systems to understand how they deal with secondary plant compounds, the toxic plant substances used for centuries as tonics, spices, medicine and recreational drugs."

Based on the number of eggs laid by a single female butterfly, scientists estimate about 99 percent of caterpillars die before reaching the pupal stage. Survival tactics include sharp spines, toxic chemicals and hairs accompanied by bright warning coloration.

The study focuses on two groups of Neotropical caterpillars: Danaini of the Caribbean Island of Hispaniola and Ithomiini of the upper Amazon in eastern Ecuador. Sourakov raised and observed danaine caterpillars, including the monarch butterfly and its relatives. These species apparently form M?llerian mimicry rings, in which toxic species adopt the same warning color patterns so a predator will more quickly learn which species to avoid.

In Ecuador, Willmott and study co-author Marianne Elias, from the Mus?um National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, found that 22 of 41 ithomiine caterpillars displayed some kind of warning coloration. Five exhibited a previously undocumented pattern with a bright yellow body and blue tips, and four were likely Batesian mimics, in which edible species adopt the coloration of an unpalatable model species for protection. These "freeloaders" only appear to have the defense mechanisms of the model species.

"They act almost like parasites, because the mimics are actually edible and therefore deceive predators without having to invest in costly resources to maintain toxicity," Willmott said. "Such a system can only be stable when the mimics are relatively rare, otherwise predators will learn the trick and attack more individuals of both mimics and models, driving models to evolve novel color patterns to escape the predators."

Mimicry may be relatively rare in caterpillars because it is more difficult for them to establish bright coloration, Willmott said. A brightly colored caterpillar has less chance of evading predators than a mobile adult butterfly.

"In adults, bright coloration may be favored by sexual selection for signaling to males and females," Willmott said. "Bright colors may be disadvantageous since they attract predators, but advantageous for attracting mates. Once established, bright colors might then be modified by natural selection for mimicry, another possible reason why mimicry seems to evolve much more frequently in adults than in caterpillars."

However, Sourakov believes mimicry is more common in caterpillars than scientists realize, but may receive less attention because larvae must be raised to adulthood to identify mimicry complexes, a process that takes weeks of lab work. Also, few collections of immature stages are maintained, and colors are not as well preserved in caterpillars.

"We know mimicry is an important ecological process for several species of animals, and I hope this study will give people incentive to further research immature stages of insects," said Andre Victor Lucci Freitas, a professor in the Instituto de Biologia at Universidade Estadual de Campinas. "We need to remember in most insects, immature stages are the most abundant."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Entomological Society of America.

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Journal Reference:

  1. Keith R. Willmott, Marianne Elias, Andrei Sourakov. Two Possible Caterpillar Mimicry Complexes in Neotropical Danaine Butterflies (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae). Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 2011; 104 (6): 1108 DOI: 10.1603/AN10086

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/EzUZj7xcvMs/111216174442.htm

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