Bombardier Beetle (Photo : Youtube)
The Bombardier Beetle has a machine gun-like mechanism, which makes the beetles shoot out hot boiling chemicals out of their body in quick successions.
The University of Arizona carried an extensive research on these chemicals after they extracted out the chemicals from the beetle's abdomen. They found out that the chemical has fire powder-like properties and was shot so rapidly that the researchers could see gun smoke coming out of it, according to Omni Feed.
Even though these chemical bullets are really fast and damaging, they do not seem to harm the beetles at all as they are fully immune to these chemicals, according to Empire State Tribune.
The researchers also used enzymes in order to clean the digestive chamber of the beetle's abdomen where this chemical is stored. They later analyzed it with optical microscopy and hi-speed X ray machines. They noticed that some of the regions of the digestive chamber wall were thick.
However, the area where the mixing valve is situated, it was pretty thin and weak. The reason behind this is that when the "firing" happens in the beetles, a substance called cuticula is released which puts a lot of pressure near the mixing valve, making it delicate and weak.
