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This podcast is brought to you by the American Chemical Society. The global challenges chemistry solutions podcast from ACS discusses how chemistry researchers critical in solving some of the world's most daunting¹ problems, concerning energy, food and water. Go to ACS.org for more information.

 This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin. This will just take a minute.

Truth in advertising² is a questionable³ concept, because it’s often self-serving to lie. Whether you’re talking about a used car salesman or a poisonous snake. No, they’re not the same thing.

In the natural world there are poisonous creatures that advertise their unpalatability with bright colors. Then there are other critters that try to protect themselves by merely mimicking⁴ the bright coloration of creatures that produce nasty toxins⁶—but without actually expending⁷ the energy on making the toxins themselves. These mimics⁸ are hoping to get by by lying about being a bad meal. But what about the beasties that really are filled with poison. Can they lie, too? Maybe save a little energy by producing a less colorful display?

Well, scientists from the U.K. say, it looks like they can’t. See, when an animal makes a toxin⁵, it also makes an antitoxin to keep it from poisoning itself. And those antitoxins are usually antioxidants, which also double as pigments⁹. So the more toxic¹⁰ a critter is, the more antioxidants it needs, and the more honestly flamboyant¹¹ its outfit¹², results published by the Royal Society on November 19th. So next time you run into a yellow-banded poison dart¹³ frog, remember, what you see is what you get.

Thanks for the minute for Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin.