Spanish fly in the ointment ...

Press, 30 November 1987, Page 25

Spanish fly in the ointment ...

NZPA-KRD Pittsburgh

From Cornell University comes word that Spanish Fly really works as an aphrodisiac — if you’re an insect, that is. If you’re not, forget it — it poisons people. Scientists long have known that certain beetles contain a substance called cantharidin, popularly known as Spanish Fly. What they didn’t know was why beetles had the stuff.

The answer comes from Thomas Eisner and Braden Roach at Cornell, and Daniel Young at the University of Wisconsin, described at a news briefing by the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing. And it’s a sexy s£ory. Cantharidin is found in two places on the male fire-coloured beetle’s body — in a groove on

the head and in glands in the reproductive tract. When a female beetle meets a male, she inspects the groove in his head. If she finds cantharidin she eats it and lets the male mate with her. No cantharidin, no sex. That’s not the whole story. When a female mates with a cantharidincarrying male, he transfers the substance from his reproductive tract to hers, where it’s incorporated into her eggs. When the eggs are laid, the chemical protects them from predators. Eisner believes the cantharidin "teaser” in the male’s forehead is a signal to the female that the male has more cantharidin to pass along. "It’s sort of like saying, ‘l’ll take you out for dinner and if you marry me you can have the whole house’,” he said.