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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

What’s in that tea? DNA reveals footprints of bugs that went before

Insects, spiders and other creepy crawlies leave traces of their DNA in dried herbs and other products.
A woman's hands holding a white cup with chamomile tea in a teabag steeping in water.

Tests of tea and dried herbs yielded evidence of the creatures that walked across, pooed on or otherwise interacted with the leaves. Credit: Tetra/Getty

Sampling of DNA on tea and dried herbs reveals that the leaves used in these products bear traces of a combined total of more than 1,200 species of invertebrate, including spiders and bugs1.

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Nature 606, 626 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01652-9

References

  1. Krehenwinkel, H., Weber, S., Künzel, S. & Kennedy, S. Biol. Lett. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2022.0091 (2022).

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