Aw, that’s nice! Birds aren’t affected by capsaicin at all — for a good reason! Birds can eat the hot stuff all day long and then spread the seeds far and wide as they fly (hope I don’t need to go into detail as to HOW they disperse them….) Mammals, which tend to stay a little closer to their feeding grounds, are sensitive to capsaicin and mostly avoid it.
So, hot pepper plants make a chemical that allows their seeds to grow in a much larger area than would happen if they simply fell on the ground, or were “dispersed” by the local mammals. Who knew PLANTS had a reproductive strategy?! ;-)
Aw, that’s nice! Birds aren’t affected by capsaicin at all — for a good reason! Birds can eat the hot stuff all day long and then spread the seeds far and wide as they fly (hope I don’t need to go into detail as to HOW they disperse them….) Mammals, which tend to stay a little closer to their feeding grounds, are sensitive to capsaicin and mostly avoid it.
So, hot pepper plants make a chemical that allows their seeds to grow in a much larger area than would happen if they simply fell on the ground, or were “dispersed” by the local mammals. Who knew PLANTS had a reproductive strategy?! ;-)