Is it farting? Yeah. It is. This is an extremely special beetle that doesn’t use any traditional means of defense. Sure a hard shell is necessary for any insect but that’s not all. Instead of biting, this beetle decided that the best course of action is to create a complex acid factory right in its abdomen, then create reservoirs inside of said abdomen to store that acid. Which is shot right out of its butt.
Okay well…conventional means aren’t my thing either.
The bombardier beetle is a pretty small ground beetle with a very special weapon. A weapon of mass destruction that will burn whatever predator is trying to come at it. Burning acid shoots right out of its butt and toasts anything that tries to eat it for breakfast. How exactly it does this is pretty complex. So read on!
Chemical warfare isn’t allowed in war anymore. Or at least to some extent. It was made a war crime to use certain chemicals in the 1925 Geneva Protocol. This insect however, is not a human. Nor is it gonna go under the ethics of humans. So instead, this beetle decided to make one of the most effective weapons in the insect war: an acid gun. Within its abdomen, it cultivates a bunch of acid using two reservoirs. Here’s how this works: one sack has hydrogen peroxide – an acid – and the other one holds hydroquinone – another type of acid. These are the two ingredients used to create this burning bio weapon. Within the inside of the beetle, these two formulas are mixed together to create a chemical reaction that boils the acid together. The mixture heats up to a scorching 100C. Ridiculously hot for a beetle.
Not only that but they have a lot of ammo! You’d think this is a one time use and you gotta wait for it to reload. Nope! They have plenty of ammo and can shoot it multiple times over! They have pretty keen rapid fire properties and can shoot quite a lot of acid before it begins to die down.
There are some insects that use acid as a defense. But they’re significantly more passive. Ladybugs release something called hemolymph out of their leg joints. Hemolymph is basically the insect equivalent of blood. It’s slightly acidic and has a really bad smell. But there’s no other insect in the world beside the bombardier beetle that uses it as an offensive, painful attack rather than a passive, repulsive smell. So they’re extremely unique and special.
So to quickly recap, the bombardier beetle is a special kind of beetle that shoots acid out of its buttocks. It burns anything in its spray path (At a boiling temperature!) that poses a threat to it. And not only is it capable of shooting acid once, but twice, three times, four times and probably many more.
The insect that has mastered chemical warfare, The Bombardier beetle everybody!
How cool is that?
