Bayblab has a post up, Which organisms can feel pain?, on capsaicin. The post also points to an article about a man dying after eating habanero chili paste (though the article makes me suspect it was some allergy).
Related: 7 days of hot sauce.
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While Mythbusters isn't exactly peer-reviewed science, they did an episode that involved repelling sharks with balloons filled with hot chili. The sharks reacted exactly the same way to the hot and the not-hot chili balloons, which is to say they ate dozens of both kinds quite happily.
my understanding is that the pepper plants want *birds* to eat their seeds preferentially since that resuls in much greater dispersal than if mammals consumed them....
Recently there were some news that the capsaicin is selected for its antimicrobial qualities, not so much as a mammal repellant.
Recently there were some news that the capsaicin is selected for its antimicrobial qualities, not so much as a mammal repellant.
the relevance to anthropology in a functional context differs from a zoological one....
Sorry, if I was unclear, I was typing on a mobile phone. I meant that the plants protect themselves from microbial infections. That this might in fact be the primary purpose of capsaicinoids, although apparently it is true that capsicum seeds that pass through mammalian digestive tract do not germinate. http://www.pnas.org/content/105/33/11808.abstract