So I inhaled a bug. Right up the nose. I of course blew the thing out immediately, and looked into the tissue to see what the offender was. It seemed to be a small fly, wholly uninteresting. What I did find interesting, was that the fly was dead. Not struggling, twitching, nothing. It seemed to have died almost immediately after being coated in snot and I got curious as to why.

Initially, I assumed the mucus just clogged the mouth parts and suffocated the fly. However, I have seen insects submerged fully in water and not drown even after being in water for long time. Possibly using trapped air bubbles to breathe with... but could they not do that in mucus? I've seen plenty of bubbles in snot before.

I then wondered if mucus contained something that might kill an insect, like a pesticide of sorts. I have a cold and have had a lot of white blood cells turning my mucus into yellow globs, and wondered if it may have had an effect on the fly. And so, aware of how gross it was, I did an experiment. Still in the garden, still with my tissue, I looked around for another bug. I saw some ants, and touched one with the tissue. I immediately felt bad because it got stuck, but watched in fascination as the ant, stuck by the abdomen, mouth parts free, stopped struggling after a few seconds, and died within the minute. Not suffocation, but the mucus still seemed to be responsible somehow.

Turns out, after a bit of googling, one of the enzymes in mucus called Lysozyme can break glycosidic bonds in chitin. Chitin is what makes up the exoskeleton of insects.

So, something in your snot can sort of dissolve insects? I tried to look for some study or paper or incident of anyone else discovering and studying this weirdness but have found nothing.

I don't know how fast it works, or to what degree it works, or if the fly and the ant were just some bad isolated incidents. I don't know how much of the enzyme needs to be present to break down chitin, nor how much of it is in the average drop of mucus. I also don't know if the enzyme is more present during times of infection such as my cold than it is when one is healthy. I don't even know if that's actually what happened to the fly, maybe it really did just suffocate quickly. Neither ant nor fly looked any different to the naked eye so I can't tell.

Does anyone know what's going on? Is this connection legit or a weird coincidence? Anyone gross enough to do an actual experiment or study?

x

Looking for sources of unusual, cool science info!