Yesterday the 32nd Ig Nobel Prize ceremony took place. The PhD work of Solimary García Hernández won the award in Biology. Her study explored the implications of tail loss in scorpions. Contrary to lizards, when scorpions detach their tail to escape a predation attempt, they lose important body parts, such as the stinger (used to inject venom) and the anus. When this happens, a scar blocks the digestive system, and because the tail does not grow back, tailless scorpions suffer from constipation for the rest of their lives. To understand how scorpions cope with tail loss, we performed several experiments and found that, in the long term, tailless and constipated individuals became slower. Moreover, because it is very hard to paralyze large animals without using venom, tailless scorpions can only capture small preys. Surprisingly, the courtship of males is not affected by tail loss. Females, in turn, give birth to fewer offspring than intact females. So, the hard moments that scorpions face after tail loss are compensated by the extra time they have to reproduce. These findings shed light on the evolution of one of the most extreme and bizarre forms of defenses in nature. We thank everybody that helped us, the funding agencies, and Marc Abrahams, the funny and kind host of the ceremony. To learn more about the Ig Nobel Prize, visit this site.
The Ig Nobel Prize was presented by Marc Abrahams and the Nobel Prize in Physics Jerome Friedman, whose findings helped to understand the quark model (please don't ask for more details!).
Making of the recording in the SexLab. We thank John Uribe for helping with with the production, photography, recording and "special effects". We also thank Rosannette Quesada Hidalgo for lending her voice for the acceptance speech. We intend to buy a bubblegum with our 10 Trillion Dollars from Zimbabwe!