Beetles and men: some glimpses of history through the contemporary lens

The tale of poisoned arrows
The bushmen clans generally used to not fight each other because most adult males are armed with arrows that have been smeared with deadly toxins. However, when from the mid-1600s the Dutch started intruding into their land and waging a war of extermination, the bushmen fought unrelentingly and with much distinction putting their poisoned arrows to good use against the invaders. The archeological investigations at the Borders cave in South Africa has uncovered a poison applicator from 24 Kya resembling the equivalent device of extant bushmen suggesting that they have been using such poisoned arrows for at least that point in time if not older. Indeed this long-standing tradition of poisoned arrows has continued from this most basal branch of humanity to the more recent branches. Based on philological evidence we can say that it was likely that the common ancestor of the Arya-s and the yavana-s within the Indo-European sphere extensively used such toxic arrows. Right in the R^igveda we have a mention of the poisoned arrow in the battle incantations of the bharadvAja-s:

AlAktA yA rurushIrShNy atho yasyA ayo mukham |
idam parjanyaretasa iShvai devyai bR^ihan namaH || RV 6.75.15
Obeisance to this arrow goddess, born of parjanya, smeared with venom, with a point of deer-horn and metal.

Among the yavana-s we encounter the poisoned arrows being used by the hero Herakles, which were later passed on to Philoctetes. Odysseus also said to go to Ephyera to obtain poisoned arrows.

Over time a variety of toxins have been utilized on the tips of the poisoned arrows. The bushmen as one of the earliest discoverers of the use of toxins in this capacity have explored a wide range of possibilities. They are known to use toxins derived from a variety sources such as castor beans, the mamba snake, and certain chrysomelid and carabid beetles. The beetles are what we are interested in talking about here. The bushmen use larvae of three chrysomelid beetles: Diamphidia nigroornata and Diamphidia vittatipennis most frequently and Polyclada flexuosa less so. Most remarkably all these chrysomelids are parasitized by the larvae of the carabid beetle Lebistina holubi and some other Lebistina species. The adult carabids closely resemble the adult chrysomelids and track them on the same host plant (the guggulu plant). These carabid larvae attach themselves to full-grown Diamphidia and Polyclada larvae and thus gain access to them when the enter diapause within their cocoons . Here the Lebistina slowly sucks them dry keeping them alive till the last larval stage. These Lebistina are also used for their venom. We do not know if they derive at least part of their venom from their hosts. However, from the reports of the bushmen it is clear that there is a difference – they distinguish the parasitic Lebistina larvae from the host and consider its toxin to be better as it apparently loosens flesh from the bone. The full-grown larvae of the chrysomelids migrate 0.5-1 meter into the ground and form an egg-shaped cocoon in which they remain in diapause for several years. The bushmen dig out these cocoons and prepare the toxin in many different ways: The simplest is carefully crushing the larva on to the arrow heads followed by heating them lightly in a fire. They might mix the crushed beetle with plant extracts and their own saliva and then apply the mixture to the arrows using an applicator as mentioned above. They may also dry the larvae and then grinding them into powder which is mixed with a plant gum and applied to the arrow.

We consider the use of these poison beetles an extraordinary discovery of the bushmen. The beetle itself is hard to get (i.e. underground) and its poison’s effect is not immediately apparent – it has no effect on endothermic vertebrates if delivered orally. However, intravenously it is lethal with no known antidote or treatment. Thus, the bushmen can safely consume the animal they have killed with its toxin. Not surprising they have evolved a code around its use: The cocoons can only be collected by the chief hunters and they are stored live in ostrich eggshell containers. From them they are taken out periodically to be used sparingly. They are also supposed to be exchanged between clans living throughout the Kalahari. The toxin from Diamphidia is a single subunit protein of weight around 50-60 Kd but to my knowledge the sequence of the gene coding for it remains unknown. Its mode of action is still not fully understood but has been demonstrated to cause cell lysis and apparently has no peptidase activity. It is only effective against endothermic vertebrates. Interestingly, a similar toxin has been reported from the North American chrysomelid Leptinotarsa and it parasitoid Lebia. Hence, we cannot rule out the possibility that the toxin is made or has been acquired by lateral transfer from a bacterial endosymbiont – this comparable to the Black widow spider latrotoxin (a protein toxin) which we recently shown to have been acquired by lateral transfer from bacterial endosymbionts.

Interestingly, there is a parallel story concerning the ancient use of toxic beetles from bhArata that is today not widely know to our people.

The use of poisons in warfare are well-known in Indo-Aryan tradition. Right in the RV we are informed in a mantra composed by kakShIvAn the son of dIrghatamas the twin deva-s, the ashvin-s devised such a toxin to slay the viShvAcha-s [Footnote 1]:

ajohavId ashvinA vartikA vAm Asno yat sIm amu~nchataM vR^ikasya |
vi jayuShA yayathuH sAnv adrer jAtaM viShvAcho ahataM viSheNa || (RV 1.117.16)
When the quail had invoked you, O ashvin-s, you saved her from the the wolf’s jaws; in your victorious march you two stormed the mountain citadel and slew the clan of the viShvAcha-s with poison.

So was a beetle toxin known to the Arya-s? The answer to this question leads to a rather convoluted story, which we shall begin with an observation of Ctesias the yavana physician of the Iranian king Artaxšaça-II in his Indica (Aelian’s citation of Indica book 4, chapter 41):

“In India there is a sort of bird as big as the egg of a patridge. It is a yellow color and makes its nest on the mountains. Indians call it dikairon. If any one takes of the feces of these birds so much as a grain of millet-seed, and in the morning drinks it dissolved in water, he falls asleep and must die in the evening. Poets, however, paint it as the sweetest and pleasantest death in the world. The Indians on that account place the greatest value on the possession of the same, for they hold it in fact as an oblivion of evil [of death]. Thus, the king of India sends it as one of the most costly gifts to the king of Iran who treasures it as a preservative and preventative of incurable ills in time of need. Therefore, among the Persians, no one possesses it but the king and the king’s mother.”

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Foonote 1: A lead-based toxin of the ashvin-s is deployed in AV-vulgate 6.50 to counter pests that target granaries.

continued …