# How butterflies self-medicate

- Institution: TED
- Department: TEDYouth 2014
- Speaker: Jaap de Roode
- Year: 2014
- Level: For everyone
- Language: English
- Subjects: Biology, Medicine and health
- Source: [TED](https://www.ted.com/talks/jaap_de_roode_how_butterflies_self_medicate)
- Licence: [CC BY-NC-ND 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) (Non-commercial use only, and no changed versions.)
- Who can watch: Teens profiles and older (sources give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the source's own words)

Just like us, the monarch butterfly sometimes gets sick thanks to a nasty parasite. But biologist Jaap de Roode noticed something interesting about the butterflies he was studying — infected female butterflies would choose to lay their eggs on a specific kind of plant that helped their offspring avoid getting sick. How do they know to choose this plant? Think of it as "the other butterfly effect" — which could teach us to find new medicines for the treatment of human disease.

## Lectures

1. [How butterflies self-medicate](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/learn/ted/jaap_de_roode_how_butterflies_self_medicate/49302ebbbf55), 7 min (TED's player)