Home Interesting Bombardier Beetle

Bombardier Beetle

by Al

I found this pretty amazing. A beetle whose defense mechanism is the ability to shoot hot boiling liquid and gas at an attacker. The beetle produces the liquid using an exothermic reaction of hydrogen peroxide and peroxidase enzymes. The temperature of the expelled liquid is around 100C.

 


 
Photo by Patrick Coin  License: CC BY-SA 2.5

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