EUROPE: The bombardier beetle has a very fitting name, as this interesting little critter has an unorthodox way of defending itself when provoked, and that’s to fire near-boiling, noxious liquid from its behind in a similar fashion to a machine gun. Or to be more specific, a Gatling gun as some reports have suggested; this beetle supposedly fires that liquid at 368 to 735 pulses per second.
A study published Thursday on the Science journal took an up-close look at the bombardier
Near-boiling temperatures. Researchers from MIT and the University of Arizona examined how the beetle mixes up chemicals in a reaction chamber and how the chemical blasts work. According to study lead Wendy Moore from the University of Arizona, each of these liquid blasts are “actually a series of extraordinary fast micro-pulses,” but contrary to previous studies, these aren’t caused by muscle contractions.
Using high-speed x-ray imaging, the scientists tried to analyze the how and the why of those noxious liquid blasts, but they also had to provoke the bombardier beetle without putting themselves at harm. To that end, they tugged on the beetle’s legs with a robotic forceps, making sure the action was timed perfectly. “For each experiment we had to cool the beetle down, carefully set it up in the observation chamber such that the X-ray beam was aimed precisely at the defensive glands, seal the doors, walk over to mission control, flip the switch to allow the X-ray beam to enter the room, and use robotic manipulators to remotely touch the beetle’s leg so it would blast,” Moore explained. “In some cases, just turning the radiation on caused them to blast.”
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