<i>S. exigua</i> oxidizes nicotine, but <i>M. sexta</i> does not.

<p>U(H)PLC/ESI-QTOF-MS-based quantitative analysis of nicotine, NNO, cotinine and CNO in (<b>a</b>) frass (<b>b</b>) hemolymph and (<b>c</b>) headspace of third-instar <i>M. sexta</i> (n = 5) and <i>S. exigua</i> (n = 5) larvae fed artificial diet containing 0.1% (fresh mass) nicotine. Lower-case letters above the <i>S. exigua</i> bars indicate significant differences (<i>P</i>≤0.05) among them, by one-way ANOVA. Asterisks above the <i>M. sexta</i> nicotine bars indicate that they differ significantly (<i>P</i>≤0.05) from the <i>S. exigua</i> nicotine values, as determined by one-way ANOVA. Nicotine oxides were not detected in <i>M. sexta</i>. The detection limit of nicotine was 0.25 ng and 0.5 ng for cotinine, CNO and NNO; efficiency of extraction was >90% for all these compounds.