Most of us have never heard of a beetle with a gun built at its back and as absurd as it sounds, there is one and it is called the bombardier beetle.
Most beetles are known to produce stinking and horrible-tasting chemicals from their abdomens to keep out predators, but researchers say that the bombardier beetles play their games even harder.
These beetles combine their chemicals in an explosive chemical reaction chamber which is in their abdomen for simultaneously synthesizing, heat and propelling their defensive load as a boiling hot spray which ends with “gun smoke”.
As if that was not enough, they even possess the ability to aim the nozzle at their attacker.
A team of scientists, details the beetle’s firing apparatus and helps to unlock the mystery of how these insects accomplish their rapid procedure of firing abilities.
Wendy Moore, one of the lead authors of the study from the University of Arizona said, “Understanding how these beetles produce - and survive - repetitive explosions could provide new design principles for technologies such as blast mitigation and propulsion.”
The anatomy of the beetle’s reaction chamber had been studied by scientists and it they found it is constructed of cuticle, which has the composition of chitin and proteins and waxes.
The exoskeleton of the insects also consists of this sturdy material and it protects the beetle from the toxic chemical, high temperatures and high pressures during the explosions.
Moore said, “Twenty-five years ago, a team of scientists from Cornell University and MIT discovered that each blast from the bombardier beetle is actually a series of extraordinarily fast micro-pulses.”
This new study has also revealed that the pulses are produced in a passive manner and not with the help of an active process which involves muscle contraction which has been theorized in the past. When the chemicals bypass a valve into the reaction chamber, they collaborate with enzymes and explosively liberate oxygen gas, water vapor and heat, which in turn propel a hot noxious spray via its nozzle and travels through the exit hole.
Moore concludes, “By having a pulsed delivery, these small beetles produce a relatively large amount of defensive spray, which they can aim precisely and with great force and speed. This is truly one of the most remarkable and elegant defensive mechanisms documented to date.”