Bombardier Beetle — Engine of natural destruction

A fantastic natural engine of destruction, this insect creates a zone of exclusion around itself via a highly sophisticated combination of boiling hot, caustic chemicals (hydroxyquinone and hydrogen peroxide) mixed just before use in conjunction with a highly accurate targeting and delivery mechanism.

See for yourself.

Biologist Thomas Eisner, who died last week at 81 — and who, along with his Cornell University colleague Jerrold Meinwold is considered the father of the field now known as chemical ecology — discovered and reported the details of precisely how the bombardier beetle does what it does.